Angela Thirkell

-
Standard Name: Thirkell, Angela
Birth Name: Angela Margaret Mackail
Pseudonym: Leslie Parker
Married Name: Angela Margaret McInnes
Married Name: Angela Margaret Thirkell
Married Name: Mrs G. L. Thirkell
AT , having already published journalism (some of it literary) and a family memoir, launched her career as a novelist in the 1930s (her own early forties) and continued publishing for nearly thirty years at the rate of a title a year or more. Among her novels the best-known are those of the long Barsetshire series: stories of English village life where characters are effortlessly eccentric, and issues of class, nationality, gender, and sexual preference are presented with a characteristic blend of naiveté, obliquity, and straight-faced humour. She also published a children's book, a historical biography, and introductions to reprints of other authors' novels.
Photograph of a drawing of Angela Thirkell, drawn in black and white. She is depicted from the shoulders up, wearing a simple dress with ruffled sleeves, and her dark hair is pulled back. There is a signature and a date in the bottom right-hand corner. The signature is not clearly visible but the date appears to be 1918.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Diana Athill
Part two, introduced by some comment on the nature of the relationship between writer and publisher, provides sketches and stories of many of the authors whom DA worked with. Though she does not belabour the...
Textual Production Penelope Fitzgerald
She brought to this work her own experience as an amateur artist, and shows great skill in the delineation of character: of William Morris as well as of Burne-Jones and his wife Georgiana (who were...
Textual Production Storm Jameson
Jameson had been approached by the Ministry of Information once the USA had entered World War II, for suggestions on how to cement Anglo-American relations.
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row.
524
The resulting volume includes work by Phyllis Bentley ,...
Textual Production Elizabeth Jenkins
EJ contributed an introduction to a volume, the seventh in John Lehmann 's The Chiltern Library, published in 1947 and containing two titles by Elizabeth Gaskell . In her introduction to Thackeray 's Vanity...
Textual Features Sue Townsend
Adrian Mole carried the genes of the British talent for humour, as formerly represented by Stella Gibbons and Angela Thirkell , but in a newly anarchic and ungenteel form. Like Richmal Crompton in the William...
Residence Enid Bagnold
The house had once belonged to artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones . EB had a private tower room for writing and an agreement with her husband that she would have three undisturbed hours daily for her...
Reception Harriette Wilson
The full title was Confessions of Julia Johnstone, written by herself. In contradiction to the fables of Harriette Wilson. It announces that Johnstone is writing to vindicate her character and those of friends, and...
Reception Barbara Pym
Another element that makes her hard to place is her comedy. Though her work has been likened to that of Drabble and Lively (both her champions) her place is rather with out-and-out satirists like Angela Thirkell
Publishing Anthony Trollope
Angela Thirkell (an avowed disciple of Trollope) wrote an introduction for an edition of this novel in 1958; so did Pamela Hansford Johnson for the Norton edition four years later. A number of women writers...
Literary responses Noel Streatfeild
Reviewers seem to have found these books hard to praise. Benny Green in The Spectator described the first Maitland book as preposterous and antiquated, but mysteriously readable and affecting.
Huse, Nancy. Noel Streatfeild. Twayne.
127
Green's disparaging use of the...
Literary responses Susan Tweedsmuir
When ST sent her friend Angela Thirkell a copy of her children's book Arabella Takes Charge, Thirkell nearly cried over an episode about a dead bird.
Strickland, Margot. Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist. Duckworth.
83
Literary responses Harriette Wilson
Biographer Frances Wilson writes, Harriette had great hopes for Clara Gazul, but it sank like a stone.
Wilson, Frances. The Courtesan’s Revenge. Faber.
281
Nevertheless, it is surprising that Angela Thirkell , in her biography of HW , pronounces Clara...
Literary responses Harriette Wilson
Contemporary admirers of HW on literary grounds included Walter Scott , who praised her dialogue and intelligence, and thought her out and out
Thirkell, Angela. The Fortunes of Harriette. Hamish Hamilton.
218
a better writer than Teresia Constantia Phillips or others in the...
Literary responses Winifred Peck
WP 's work has received little notice. Her Times obituary likened her to novelist Angela Thirkell for her marked talent for sharp characterization, amusing dialogue, and . . . ability to condense a life history...
Intertextuality and Influence Lady Cynthia Asquith
Probably in the year after making a note of Angela Thirkell 's example, and in some kind of agreement with Eileen Bigland that they should each produce a novel, LCA published her first of these,...

Timeline

1957: Colin MacInnes (son of novelist Angela Thirkell)...

Writing climate item

1957

Colin MacInnes (son of novelist Angela Thirkell ) published the first of his three Londonnovels of the 1950s, City of Spades, a pioneering study of immigrant Black society in Britain.

Texts

Thirkell, Angela. Ankle Deep. Hamish Hamilton, 1933.
Thirkell, Angela. August Folly. Hamish Hamilton, 1936.
Thirkell, Angela. Before Lunch. Hamish Hamilton, 1939.
Thirkell, Angela. Cheerfulness Breaks In. Hamish Hamilton, 1940.
Thirkell, Angela. Coronation Summer. Oxford University Press, 1937.
Thirkell, Angela. County Chronicle. Hamish Hamilton, 1950.
Thirkell, Angela. Growing Up. Hamish Hamilton, 1943.
Thirkell, Angela. High Rising. Hamish Hamilton, 1933.
Gould, Tony, and Angela Thirkell. “Introduction”. Trooper to the Southern Cross, Virago, 1985, p. v - xiii.
Thirkell, Angela. Jutland Cottage. Hamish Hamilton, 1953.
Thirkell, Angela. Marling Hall. Hamish Hamilton, 1942.
Thirkell, Angela. Miss Bunting. Hamish Hamilton, 1945.
Thirkell, Angela. Northbridge Rectory. Hamish Hamilton, 1941.
Thirkell, Angela. O, these Men, these Men. Hamish Hamilton, 1935.
Thirkell, Angela. Pomfret Towers. Hamish Hamilton, 1938.
Thirkell, Angela. Summer Half. Hamish Hamilton, 1937.
Thirkell, Angela. The Brandons. Hamish Hamilton, 1939.
Thirkell, Angela. The Demon in the House. Hamish Hamilton, 1934.
Thirkell, Angela. The Fortunes of Harriette. Hamish Hamilton, 1936.
Thirkell, Angela, and Ludwig Richter. The Grateful Sparrow and Other Tales. Hamish Hamilton, 1935.
Thirkell, Angela. The Headmistress. Hamish Hamilton, 1944.
Thirkell, Angela. Three Houses. Oxford University Press, 1931.
Thirkell, Angela. Three Houses. Robin Clark, 1986.
Thirkell, Angela, and Caroline Alice Lejeune. Three Score and Ten. Hamish Hamilton, 1961.
Thirkell, Angela. Trooper to the Southern Cross. Faber and Faber, 1934.