Introducing Jane Austen Week
By Harriet Jane Austen died two hundred years ago, on 18 July 1817, at the age of just 41. She had anonymously published four novels – Sense and Sensibility (1811),…
How Sarah Waters Won Over the Reading World
By Victoria Best The press release for Sarah Waters’ new novel, The Paying Guests, describes it as ‘the most anticipated book of 2014’ and for once, this feels more like fact…
Remembering Anita
By Thomas Otto Eighteen years ago, as an American with an inexplicable, but deep-seated Anglophilia, I picked up Anita Brookner’s novel A Friend from England (1987) based on the title alone. I’m…
Ruth Rendell (1930-2015)
By Harriet Devine Ruth Rendell’s death on 2 May this year has brought to an end a career spanning an astonishing fifty years. By the time you are reading this,…
Biographical Notes: Frances Vernon
Written by Harriet The life of Frances Vernon, whose six novels have just been reprinted by Faber Finds, makes for sad reading. Born, as Georgina Frances Vernon, on 1 December…
Monique Roffey – A Profile
By Victoria Best Monique Roffey has been on a creative roll for the best part of a decade and has seen her work rise to prominence and gain critical acclaim;…
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) – A Biographical Note
Written by Harriet Devine. She will love deeply – suffer terribly – she will have glorious moments to compensate. Emily Byrd Starr, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s most autobiographical heroine, remembered these…
Celia Fremlin – A Life of Crime
By Victoria Best Celia Fremlin published her first crime fiction, The Hours Before Dawn, in 1959, when she was 44 years old, and it was an instant success, winning her the Edgar…