In the spring of 1949, Jack Agass belatedly returns from the war to the working class street in Islington where he grew up. A proud, supportive community — with a pub and a barber shop, and a common love of The Arsenal. But the street has changed. Jack eventually finds his footing but he’s haunted by a yearning for his old childhood friend Rosie Hogarth, and for the pre-war security and certainties she represents. Rosie has moved out and up — living bohemian-style in Bloomsbury. He thinks she’s selling sex — it turns out her motive is political.

Rosie Hogarth is a taut and very human drama played out through the summer and autumn of the last year of the 1940s. In his first London novel, Alexander Baron provides one of the most powerful and compassionate evocations of a working class community in the throes of profound change.

"Alexander Baron was the greatest British novelist of the last war and amongst the finest... of the postwar period."
The Guardian

Alexander Baron wrote screenplays for Hollywood, and by the 1960s he had become a regular writer on BBC’s Play for Today for drama serials like 'Poldark' and 'A Horseman Riding By'. He is best known for his post-war novels, being one of the most popular and highly rated novelists of his day. Introduced by Andrew Whitehead, who works for the BBC World Service and is a former BBC political and Indian correspondent.