Dates

• Existence: 1905-1999. - 1999

Biography

Janet Buchanan Adam Smith was born in Glasgow in 1905, the daughter of Sir George and Lilian Adam Smith. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and Somerville College Oxford. She then joined the BBC, becoming assistant editor of The Listener in 1930.

In 1935 she married Michael Roberts (1902-1948), poet, teacher and mountaineer. The family settled in London after the war, and after the death of her husband in 1948, Janet Adam Smith joined the staff of The New Statesman, becoming its literary editor in 1952. In 1965 she married John Carleton (1908-1974), headmaster of Westminster School.

As literary editor and critic she wrote on a wide range of literary and cultural topics, and produced major editions and studies of Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James and John Buchan. She also wrote about her own mountaineering activities and those of the many climbers and mountaineers whom she knew.

Janet Adam Smith was a Trustee of the National Library of Scotland from 1950 to 1985. She was President of the Royal Literary Fund from 1976 to 1984. She received an honorary Ll.D from the University of Aberdeen in 1962 and was appointed OBE in 1982.

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