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
Literary responses Ivy Compton-Burnett
Brigid Brophy , reviewing this novel for the New Statesman, wrote not entirely appreciatively that the devices of the plot-making seem borrowed from the Edwardian theatre, that a positively farcical pile-up of skeletons come...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Novelist Brigid Brophy , who also likened PH to Dostoevsky ,
Dirda, Michael. “This Woman Is Dangerous”. The Guardian, 20 June 2009, p. between pp. 12 and 13.
between 12 and 13
also wrote in November 1965 that among crime writers only PH and Georges Simenon had transcended the limits of crime...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
She has been better appreciated in Britain than her native USA, and perhaps better in Europe than in Britain. Frank Richards wrote that she made a life's work of her ostracisation from the American...
Literary responses Shena Mackay
Brigid Brophy wrote appreciative reviews of some of SM 's early books.
Hamilton, Ian, 1938 - 2001. “Bohemian Rhapsodist”. The Guardian, 10 July 1999, pp. Saturday Review 6 - 7.
6
Literary responses Shena Mackay
SM 's early fame or notoriety, her love of marginal characters and dysfunctional human relations, her leaning towards the episodic and throwaway and her avoidance of the self-consciously serious or weighty, seem to have militated...
Literary responses Katherine Mansfield
More recently, writers citing Mansfield's importance to them have included Brigid Brophy , Angus Wilson , and Canadian Alice Munro . Janice Kulyk Keefer 's Thieves: A Novel of Katherine Mansfield, 2004, presents a...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
Brigid Brophy wrote that she valued very highly indeed the considered and considerable despair at the heart of this novel.
qtd. in
Leclercq, Florence. Elizabeth Taylor. Twayne, 1985.
85
From her dedicatee, Elizabeth Bowen , ET received with a letter praising the book's...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
This volume drew an enthusiastic response from Brigid Brophy , writing in the New Statesman, who declared herself ET 's dedicated fan.
Brophy, Brigid. Don’t Never Forget. Cape, 1966.
164
Her enthusiasm was no passing feeling, for she chose to...
Intertextuality and Influence Germaine Greer
In Bed with the English, which takes the form of a letter, declares its literary allegiances to be Anglo-American. It hopes to provide a straight-talking [Mary] McCarthy -[Brigid] Brophy rundown on the English...
Intertextuality and Influence Dorothy Bussy
Apart from her familial and social connections, it is for Olivia that DB is most frequently noted in literary criticism and biography. In Distance and Desire: English Boarding-School Friendships (1984), Martha Vicinus observes that Olivia...
Friends, Associates George Bernard Shaw
He was an important figure in the lives and careers of almost innumerable women writers: a good friend of Annie Besant , Sylvia Pankhurst , Elizabeth Robins , and Christopher St John , a romantic...
Friends, Associates Patricia Highsmith
Although she liked her solitude, PH built a wide and robust network of friendships, largely conducted by letter. She developed slowly—not on first meeting her, but later—a friendship with her fellow-novelist Brigid Brophy .
Wilson, Andrew Norman. Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. Bloomsbury, 2003.
265-6
Friends, Associates Shena Mackay
She was a close friend of Brigid Brophy from the early 1980s until Brophy's death in 1995. Brophy's brave account of her battle with multiple sclerosis pays generous tribute to SM 's loving support.
Brophy, Brigid. Baroque-’n’-Roll. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
14ff
Friends, Associates Iris Murdoch
She met Brigid Brophy (another friend who was years tempestuously a lover) in 1954. This relationship survived several crises, when Brophy took offence at Murdoch's actions or expressed dislike for her writing. IM met Elizabeth Bowen
Family and Intimate relationships Maureen Duffy
MD was living with a female partner when in summer 1967 her fellow-novelist Brigid Brophy fell in love with her. A former lover, Iris Murdoch , magnanimously hoped that this relationship would prove something stable...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Brophy, Brigid. The Snow Ball. Secker and Warburg, 1964.
Brophy, Brigid. “The Waste-Disposal Unit”. London Magazine, London Magazine.