Marghanita Laski, a cultural force in twentieth-century Britain, published six novels, four biographies (one on multiple subjects), an anti-nuclear play, a collection of children's stories, three quasi-scientific investigations into secular and religious experiences, and various short stories, including a ghost story and an anti-nuclear fiction. She also edited various collections: poetry, children's stories, and essays on
Charlotte Yonge. Her articles and book reviews appeared in the
Times, the
Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere. She also wrote three film scripts, co-authored a television series, and made a substantial contribution of quotations for the
Oxford English Dictionary. Marghanita Laski's novels address class issues and gender barriers, often satirically. They reflect the political, social, and economic anxieties and tensions felt in England during the Second World War and the Cold War. A self-professed atheist, ML wrote secular studies of 'ecstatic' experiences.
Milestones
24 October 1915 Esther Pearl Laski (later known as ML) was born in
Manchester (not London, as some reference sources report), the eldest of six children.
November 1944 ML published through her
husband's
Cresset Press her first novel,
Love on the Supertax, a fantastical comedy whose title invokes Walter Greenwood's
Love on the Dole, 1933.
By 6 November 1953 ML's suspense novel
The Victorian Chaise-Longue juxtaposes the lives of a mid-Victorian woman and a twentieth-century woman, examining the consequences of female independence in each period.
1987 ML's final publication was also her last literary biography:
From Palm to Pine: Rudyard Kipling Abroad and at Home.
6 February 1988 ML, a lifelong smoker, died of cigarette-related illness in
London's Royal Brompton Hospital, which specialises in the treatment of pulmonary diseases.
