Sally Cline

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Sally Cline
FRSA
Born(1938-01-05)5 January 1938
London, U.K.
DiedSeptember 2022(2022-09-00) (aged 84)
OccupationsWriter, biographer, journalist, editor, instructor
SpouseLarry Adler (m. 1969, div. 1977)
RelativesJerry Adler (brother-in-law)

Sally Irene Cline (5 January 1938 – September 2022) was a British writer and editor, best known for her biographies of Radclyffe Hall, Dashiell Hammett, and Zelda Fitzgerald. She was a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Early life and education

Cline was born in London, the daughter of A. T. Cline.[1] She graduated from Durham University with an arts degree and earned a master's degree in literature from Lancaster University.[2][3] Her master's thesis was titled "Lesbian Feminist Versions: Construction of a New Reality" (1982).[4]

Career

Cline was a lifestyle journalist as a young woman.[5][6] Later she wrote biographies, short stories, and books of nonfiction. Her biography of Radclyffe Hall was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography. She edited a series on writing for Bloomsbury Publishing. She was director of the Royal Literary Fund Writers Pool Mentoring Scheme. She taught writing courses at Cambridge University, Anglia Ruskin University, and City University London.[7]

Publications

  • "The Case of Beatrice: An Analysis of the Word Lesbian and the Power of Language to Control Women" (1984)[8]
  • Reflecting Men at Twice Their Natural Size (1987, with Dale Spender)[9]
  • Just Desserts: Women and Food (1990)[10]
  • Women, Celibacy and Passion (1993)[11][12]
  • Lifting The Taboo: Women Death and Dying (1995)[13][14]
  • Radclyffe Hall: A Woman Named John (1998)[15][16]
  • Couples: Scene from the Inside (1998)[17]
  • Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise (2002)[18]
  • The Arvon Book of Life Writing (2010, co-editor, with Carole Angier)[19]
  • The Arvon Book of Literary Non-Fiction (2012, co-editor, with Midge Gillies)[20]
  • Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery (2014)[21]
  • Literary Non-Fiction: A Writers' & Artists' Companion (2015, with Midge Gillies)[22]
  • After Agatha: Women Write Crime (2022)[23]

Personal life

In 1960, Cline married Neville Samuel Gaffin.[1] Cline married her second husband, American musician Larry Adler, in 1969.[10][24] They had a daughter[25][26] and they divorced in 1977.[27][28] "At different times in her life she has been heterosexual, lesbian, married, separated, divorced," noted a 1993 profile of Cline.[11] She died in 2022, at the age of 84.[3]

References

  1. "Gaffin-Cline (engagement announcement)". The Guardian. 1 July 1960. p. 22. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. Graduates of the University. Durham: Durham University. 1960. p. 141.
  3. "Sally Cline". Royal Literary Fund. Retrieved 9 June 2026.
  4. Cline, Sally I. "Lesbian Feminist Versions: Construction of a New Reality" (1982, M. Litt. thesis, University of Lancaster); via ProQuest.
  5. Cline, Sally (30 November 1964). "My Marriage Map of Britain 1964". The Daily Sketch. p. 10. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Cline, Sally (22 October 1964). "Notes before I left Russia". The Daily Sketch. p. 10. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Sally Cline 1938-2022". Gold Dust. Archived from the original on 9 May 2026. Retrieved 9 June 2026.
  8. Cline, Sally. "The Case of Beatrice: an Analysis of the Word “Lesbian” and the Power of Language to Control Women." Feminist Experience in Feminist Research. Manchester: Department of Sociology, University of Manchester (1984).
  9. Kelly, Molly (23 June 1987). "We don't have to be doormats for that male ego". The Herald (Glasgow ed.). p. 12. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. McWilliam, Candia (8 March 1990). "Through thick and thin (review)". Evening Standard. p. 92. Retrieved 9 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Watts, Janet (7 March 1993). "Celibacy: Exploding the Genital Myth". The Observer. pp. 49, 50. Retrieved 9 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. Smith, Joan (11 April 1993). "When no means never (review)". The Independent. p. 69. Retrieved 9 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. Cline, Sally (1997). Lifting the Taboo: Women, Death and Dying. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1406-5.
  14. Elliott, Sue (20 September 1995). "Time to lift the veil on the final taboo (review)". Cambridge Evening News. p. 16. Retrieved 9 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. Cline, Sally (1998). Radclyffe Hall : a woman called John. Internet Archive. Woodstock, NY : Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0-87951-831-8.
  16. Gross, John (22 June 1997). "The literary lesbian (review)". Sunday Telegraph. p. 51. Retrieved 9 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. Millard, Lisa (7 October 1998). "Grappling with Nineties relationships (review)". Cambridge Evening News. p. 21. Retrieved 9 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. Cline, Sally (4 July 2013). Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-30939-9.
  19. Cline, Sally (2010). The Arvon book of life writing : writing biography, autobiography and memoir. Internet Archive. Methuen Drama. ISBN 978-1-4081-2418-5.
  20. Cline, Sally; Gillies, Midge (2 October 2012). The Arvon Book of Literary Non-Fiction. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4081-3123-7.
  21. Cline, Sally (7 June 2016). Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-62872-378-6.
  22. Cline, Sally; Gillies, Midge (19 November 2015). Literary Non-Fiction: A Writers' & Artists' Companion: Writing About Everything From Travel to Food to Sex. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4742-6832-5.
  23. Cline, Sally. After Agatha: women write crime. Oldcastle Books Ltd, 2022.
  24. "Purple Trousers for Bridegroom Larry Adler". Evening Standard. 1 January 1969. p. 21. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  25. Cline, Sally (12 June 1990). "Like mother, like daughter?". The Guardian. p. 17. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. Keavney, Kay (23 July 1969). "The Gentle Nonconformist". The Australian Women's Weekly. p. 5 – via Trove.
  27. Wintle, Angela (17 February 2001). "The life and loves of Larry". The Argus. pp. 26, 27, 28. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. "Adler is divorced". Western Daily Press. 18 February 1977. p. 5. Retrieved 10 June 2026 – via Newspapers.com.