Born in 1923, Eva Hanagan was a literary novelist, described by Auberon Waugh as the ‘Jane Austen of the 20th century’.  Her first novel, In Thrall, was published in 1977 and she went on to write a further six, the last of which, The Daisy Rock, was published in 1998.

Hanagan worked for Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in March 1946 was posted to Vienna to join the Allied Commission for Austria. She worked in the legal division on the de-nazification of Austrian law and the prosecution of war crimes.

She later taught creative writing  at HM Prison Ford in Sussex. She was the first ever writer in residence appointed by the Home office.

She died in 2009.