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
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Margaret Atwood
Subjects include English women writers Virginia Woolf , Antonia Fraser , Marina Warner , and Hilary Mantel , Americans Toni Morrison and Ursula Le Guin, as well as the reluctant Canadian Susanna Moodie and...
Reception Caryl Churchill
Antonia Fraser (who did not see the play but heard the author describe it) thought this Vivid, horrifying—and not all that unfair.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
273
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 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
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 .
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...
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
Textual Production Harold Pinter
The Guardian carried a poem by the still living HP entitled To my Wife: You took my hand / You watched me die / And found my life / You were my life /...
Textual Production Harold Pinter
Eighteen months before he died, HP composed a poem of farewell to Antonia Fraser that begins: I shall miss you so much when I'm dead.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
313
Performance of text Harold Pinter
HP and Antonia Fraser performed the two parts in his sketch Apart From That, at the Inner Temple in London, to benefit a family charity, the Patrick Pakenham Scholarships for young ex-offenders.
“Harold Pinter (1930 - 2008)”. doollee.com: Playwrights.
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...
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

Timeline

1 January 1916: The British edition of Vogue (an American...

Building item

1 January 1916

The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast in Hanover Square, London.

23 April 1975: A major demonstration was held in Belgrave...

Writing climate item

23 April 1975

A major demonstration was held in Belgrave Square, London, in support of Public Lending Right.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
16

1984: The Authors' Foundation was set up to make...

Writing climate item

1984

The Authors' Foundation was set up to make awards to writers: it marked the centenary of the Society of Authors and had help from the Royal Literary Fund ; it had Antonia Fraser and Michael Holroyd

Texts

Fraser, Antonia. “A Most Superior Street”. Spectator.co.uk. Champagne for the brain.
Fraser, Antonia. A Splash of Red. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981.
Fraser, Antonia. Boadicea’s Chariot: The Warrior Queens. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.
Fraser, Antonia. Cool Repentance. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982.
Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell: Our Chief of Men. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.
Fraser, Antonia, editor. “Introduction”. The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1975, pp. 9-18.
Fraser, Antonia. Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave and Other Stories. Bloomsbury, 1991.
Fraser, Antonia. Jemima Shore’s First Case and Other Stories. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986.
Fraser, Antonia. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Heirloom Library, 1954.
Fraser, Antonia. King James VI of Scotland, I of England. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974.
Fraser, Antonia. Marie Antoinette: The Journey. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001.
Fraser, Antonia. Mary, Queen of Scots. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969.
Fraser, Antonia. Mary, Queen of Scots. Franklin Library, 1981.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada, 2010.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Weidenfeld, 2010.
Fraser, Antonia. My History. Orion, 2015.
Fraser, Antonia. “Optical Research”. Lives for Sale: Biographers’ Tales, edited by Mark Bostridge, Continuum, 2004, pp. 113-17.
Fraser, Antonia. Our Israeli Diary. Oneworld Publications, 2017.
Fraser, Antonia. Oxford Blood. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985.
Fraser, Antonia. Political Death. Heinemann, 1994.
Fraser, Antonia. Quiet as a Nun. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977.
Fraser, Antonia. The Cavalier Case. Bloomsbury, 1990.
Fraser, Antonia. The Gunpowder Plot: Terror & Faith in 1605. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1996.
Fraser, Antonia. The King and the Catholics. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2018.
Fraser, Antonia. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992.