Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
The prize went to P. H. Newby
's Something to Answer For, which according to Kermode years later was a compromise decision. Dame Rebecca didn't dislike it as much as nearly all the others...
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.
HP
and Antonia Fraser
hosted a dinner meeting which launched an informal Labour philosophy group calling itself therefore the June 20 Group
.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
153-5
Publishing
Emma Tennant
ET
, who had been taken on in an attempt to avoid negative reviews like those that had plagued Alexandra Ripley
's sequel, Scarlett, 1991, finished the book four months ahead of schedule, but...
Publishing
Anthony Trollope
Doctor Thorne, the third novel in the series, was published by Smith Elder
in 1858.
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
191
Ruth Rendell
wrote an introduction to a Penguin
edition in 1991. The fourth in the series, Framley Parsonage...
Reception
Agnes Strickland
Lives of the Queens of England was frequently reprinted with additions and revisions; the 1852 edition, regarded as definitive, was reprinted in 1972 with an introduction by the Stricklands' fellow-biographer Antonia Fraser
. Fraser
's...
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
Residence
Vita Sackville-West
In March 1975 Antonia Fraser
visited Sissinghurst and wrote in her diary: Slept in Vita's bedroom, cold but grand. No ghosts.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
54
Textual Features
Harold Pinter
The characters, Hirst, an established, even establishment writer, and Spooner, a minor poet, are named after famous cricketers, according to Pinter's frequent practice in other works as well.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
22
Antonia Fraser
explained this play (to...
Textual Features
Harold Pinter
Antonia Fraser
called The Rooma savage, melancholy play which ends in appalling on stage physical violence. None of Pinter's other mature plays do this: he learned to keep the violence either offstage or in...
Textual Production
Emma Tennant
On the recommendation of Lady Antonia Fraser
, ET
was commissioned by St Martin's Press
to write the second sequel to Margaret Mitchell
's American classic, Gone With the Wind.
Lyall, Sarah. “It’s hard to keep a good sequel secret”. New York Times, p. C1, C12.
C1, C12
Lyall, Sarah. “Book sequel creates a new civil war”. New York Times, p. D7.
D7
Textual Production
Harold Pinter
HP
and his wife Antonia Fraser
received advance, numbered copies of Pinter's Poems, edited by her and published by the Greville Press
.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
263
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.
