Antonia Fraser

Standard Name: Fraser, Antonia
Birth Name: Antonia Pakenham
Styled: Lady Antonia Pakenham
Married Name: Lady Antonia Fraser
Married Name: Lady Antonia Pinter
The writing of AF , who published her first book in 1954 and remains active in the early twenty-first century, falls into several distinct categories. She engaged first in children's writing, then in historical scholarship, much of it biographical and concerned with the lives of women in particular, then in detective fiction. She has also published journalism and edited anthologies. Most highly regarded as a historian, she has also had success with her thrillers and recent memoirs.
Black-and-white portrait photo of Antonia Fraser, 23 January 1969. She has long blonde hair which is half-up, and wears a white blouse with a lacy collar under a dark vest. She has long lower eyelashes.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Harold Pinter
He had heard the news of the award on 13 October, and soon learned that it had transformed his life into that of a celebrity. He was too ill to travel to Stockholm for the...
Literary responses Marghanita Laski
Reviews were mixed. The San Francisco Chronicle called this a tour-de-force of its kind,, a little jewel of horror. The Times Literary Supplement dismissed it as surprisingly sentimental and not a very original story...
Literary responses Nancy Mitford
The Blessing did not do so well as its two predecessors; Antonia Fraser feels that it marked a decline in fictional achievement.
Fraser, Antonia. “A Most Superior Street”. Spectator.co.uk. Champagne for the brain.
NM wrote that My Blessing has had the most awful reviews you ever...
Literary responses Nancy Mitford
Historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote in the Manchester Guardian: All who admired The Pursuit of Love will be delighted to hear that its characters have appeared again, this time in fancy dress. They...
Literary responses Eleanor Farjeon
In response to the broadcasting of Kings and Queens in 2002, both Antonia Fraser and John Julius Norwich confessed that as children they had learned all their history from these poems; the reprint quickly sold...
Literary responses Harold Pinter
The final speech in A Kind of Alaska made Antonia Fraser (seeing it in the theatre for at least the second time) begin to sob, and continue to weep uncontrollably after the curtain came down...
Literary responses Margaret Forster
Another historical biographer, Antonia Fraser , responded positively (in the Sunday Times) to MF 's unusual emphasis in this book, and appreciated its accomplished mixture of skillful narrative and psychological insight.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
155
Friends, Associates Ruth Rendell
Winterson said, She was the mother I never had—wise, benign, loving and always there.
Brooks, Libby. “Ruth Rendell: Dark lady of whodunnits”. The Guardian, pp. 16-19.
19
RR 's other literary friends included Antonia Fraser and P. D. James . Her friendship with Peter Kemp dated from...
Friends, Associates Edna O'Brien
After her move to London, her successful literary career made EOB a friend of such writers as Mordecai Richler , Philip Roth , Antonia Fraser , and Harold Pinter .
Bennett, Ronan. “The Country Girl’s Home Truths”. Guardian Unlimited.
1
Family and Intimate relationships Judith Kazantzis
JK 's eldest sister won fame as a writer specialising in history, historical biography, and detective stories under her first married name of Antonia Fraser .
Family and Intimate relationships Harold Pinter
HP intended to marry Antonia Fraser on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, but at the last moment Vivien Merchant refused to sign the decree absolute.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
120-1
Family and Intimate relationships Harold Pinter
HP and the writer Lady Antonia Fraser fell in love early in 1975. He told his wife, Vivien Merchant, about this in late March and a month later moved out of their shared home to...
Dedications Harold Pinter
HP 's Poems and Prose, 1949-1977 was published in 1978 (dedicated to Antonia Fraser ) and revised as Collected Poems and Prose in 1986.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
89
Cultural formation Marina Warner
In England, MW had a comfortable middle-class upbringing. Her godfather was crime reformer Lord Longford (father of historian and novelist Antonia Fraser ). A writer, Violet Trefusis , was her godmother and another novelist, Lawrence Durrell
Cultural formation Harold Pinter
Pinter's working-class roots were always emphasized in the media, particularly at the time of his marriage to Antonia Fraser , an earl's daughter. But Fraser argues that although technically born into the working class, he...

Timeline

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Texts

Fraser, Antonia, and Harold Pinter. “The US president nukes the world: read Harold Pinter’s newly discovered play”. theguardian.com.
Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984.
Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England. Methuen, 1985.
Fraser, Antonia. The Wild Island. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.
Fraser, Antonia. “Writers’ Rooms”. theguardian.com.
Fraser, Antonia. Your Royal Hostage. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987.