Brigid Brophy

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Standard Name: Brophy, Brigid
Birth Name: Brigid Antonia Susan Brophy
Married Name: Brigid Antonia Susan Levey
Titled: Brigid Antonia Susan, Lady Levey
In the novel BB 's topics are social and sexual comedy. In non-fiction (essays, criticism, polemic) she pursued her interests in causes (often for the benefit of animals or writers), in opera and other arts, in deviant or nonconformist behaviour, and in individuals with a particular appeal to her. Late in her career, which spanned the second half of the twentieth century, came moving and clear-sighted writing on her multiple sclerosis. BB disliked and opposed the study of women's writing in isolation from that of men.
Black and white photograph of Brigid Brophy wearing a zebra print sleeveless blouse over a black turtle neck. In the background, there are several bookcases visible. She is facing the camera.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Nancy Cunard
This reached print only two years before a book on the same outrageously camp figure by a younger writer, Brigid Brophy . The British Library keeps its copy in the category of books likely to...
Textual Production Iris Murdoch
IM gave the manuscript to her friend Brigid Brophy , who later sold it for £500, with her approval, to the University of Iowa . A film company began shooting the story in 1962, but...
Textual Features Elizabeth Taylor
One quality in ET 's work worth singling out is her penchant for creating thoroughly dislikable characters whom she nevertheless persuades the reader to view with sympathy. As Brigid Brophy puts it, she explores the...
Textual Features Angela Brazil
Her protagonist Lesbia Ferrars, with her large dreamy eyes
Freeman, Gillian. The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Allen Lane.
81
and Irish/Highland blood (she is Celtic to the core),
Freeman, Gillian. The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Allen Lane.
81
is a self-portrait, but Lesbia's experiences as a governess after leaving school are those...
Textual Features Iris Murdoch
The title comes from William Hogarth 's series of didactic engravings about the two apprentices, of whom the industrious one rises to be Lord Mayor while the idle one takes to crime and is hanged....
Reception Iris Murdoch
This book was runner-up (to Brigid Brophy 's) for the Cheltenham Literary Festival's prize for a first novel.
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins.
486
It and her second caused IM to be grouped with the so-called socially anarchic school
British Book News. British Council.
(1957): 451
Publishing Shena Mackay
Before Babies in Rhinestones appeared, SM completed a novel entitled A Bowl of Cherries, which reuses some parts of her unpublished The Firefly Motel. She submitted this, her first novel for over a...
Publishing Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
The novel quickly went through seven editions. French and German translations were titled from the heroine Glorvina or Glorwina
Wordsworth, Jonathan. The Bright Work Grows: Women Writers of the Romantic Age. Woodstock Books.
159
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
2: 237
In 1846 it appeared in Colburn's Standard Novels, a series designed for...
politics Lettice Cooper
She also participated in the campaign for authors' public lending right, having been a founder-member with Brigid Brophy , Maureen Duffy , and others, of Writers' Action Group .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Occupation Rebecca West
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...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
MD organised a Prop Art (propaganda art) Exhibition in London, together with Brigid Brophy .
Duffy, Maureen. The Microcosm. Virago.
prelims
Occupation Maureen Duffy
MD has undertaken a number of positions in public life, working tirelessly to improve the lot of authors—and of laboratory animals. Along with Brigid Brophy and 148 others, she was a signatory of The Rights...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
This organization, which MD set up together with her colleague Brigid Brophy , had as its aim to fight for loans-based, flat rate, government-funded Public Lending Right, to be paid to authors, not publishers:
Platt, Edward. “25 Years fighting for writers’ rights”. ALCS News, No. 21, pp. 4-5.
4-5
Occupation Maureen Duffy
Before the general election of May 1979, MD and Brigid Brophy offered a job at ALCS to Elizabeth Thomas (advisor to Michael Foot ) in case Labour should lose.
Thomas, Elizabeth. “25th Anniversary: Elizabeth Thomas remembers Maureen and Brigid”. ALCS News, No. 21, p. 6.
6
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
Brigid Brophy wrote that she valued very highly indeed the considered and considerable despair at the heart of this novel.
Leclercq, Florence. Elizabeth Taylor. Twayne.
85
From her dedicatee, Elizabeth Bowen , ET received with a letter praising the book's...

Timeline

August 1945: Canadian poet, novelist, and critic Elizabeth...

Writing climate item

August 1945

Canadian poet, novelist, and critic Elizabeth Smart published her first novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (written four years previously during her first pregnancy).

1965: Giles Gordon did a series of interviews for...

Women writers item

1965

Giles Gordon did a series of interviews for The Scotsman with female authors: a species of writer that at the time wasn't particularly recognised, although it certainly had been in the previous century.

By early November 1973: Experimental novelist B. S. Johnson prefaced...

Writing climate item

By early November 1973

Experimental novelist B. S. Johnson prefaced his short-story volume Aren't You Rather Young To Be Writing Your Memoirs? with a polemical critique listing only sixteen serious contemporary British writers.

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

Texts

Brophy, Brigid. A Guide to Public Lending Right. Gower, 1983.
Brophy, Brigid. “Afterword”. The King of a Rainy Country, Virago, 1990.
Brophy, Brigid. Baroque-’n’-Roll. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
Brophy, Brigid. Beardsley and His World. Thames and Hudson, 1976.
Brophy, Brigid. Black and White. Cape, 1968.
Brophy, Brigid. Black Ship to Hell. Secker and Warburg, 1962.
Brophy, Brigid. Don’t Never Forget. Cape, 1966.
Brophy, Brigid et al. Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without. Rapp and Carroll, 1967.
Brophy, Brigid. Flesh. Secker and Warburg, 1962.
Brophy, Brigid. Hackenfeller’s Ape. Hart Davis, 1953.
Brophy, Brigid. In Transit. Macdonald, 1969.
Brophy, Brigid. Mozart the Dramatist. Faber and Faber, 1964.
Brophy, Brigid. Palace without Chairs. Hamish Hamilton, 1978.
Brophy, Brigid. Prancing Novelist. Macmillan, 1973.
Brophy, Brigid. Pussy Owl. BBC, 1976.
Brophy, Brigid. Reads. Penguin/Sphere, 1989.
Brophy, Brigid. Religious Education in State Schools. Fabian Society, 1967.
Brophy, Brigid. The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl. Macmillan, 1973.
Brophy, Brigid. The Burglar. Cape, 1968.
Brophy, Brigid. The Crown Princess. Collins, 1953.
Brophy, Brigid. The Finishing Touch. Secker and Warburg, 1963.
Brophy, Brigid. The King of a Rainy Country. Secker and Warburg, 1956.
Brophy, Brigid. The King of a Rainy Country. Virago, 1990.
Brophy, Brigid. The Longford Threat to Freedom. National Secular Society, 1972.
Brophy, Brigid. The Prince and the Wild Geese. Hamish Hamilton, 1983.