Patricia Beer

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PB was a poet who also published, during the later twentieth century, autobiography, two novels (also autobiographical in scope), literary criticism, reviews, and topographical writing. Her collected essays and one of her novels appeared posthumously.
Black-and-white-photo of Patricia Beer sitting in a chair reading her poetry at a festival held at the Royal Court Theatre, London, July 1963.

Milestones

4 November 1919

PB was born at the seaport of Exmouth in Devon, the second daughter in her family and only fourteen months younger than her sister.
She was, to use the word of her obituarist John Mullan , obscure about her birthdate, which is given wrongly—five years off—in every anthology in which her poems ever appeared, and in every reference book published in her lifetime.
Mullan, John. “Obituary: Patricia Beer”. The Guardian, p. 18.
18
Mullan, John. “Obituary: Patricia Beer”. The Guardian, p. 18.
18
Beer, Patricia. Mrs. Beer’s House. Macmillan.
126

1 December 1974

PB 's Reader, I Married Him: A Study of the Women Characters of Jane Austen , Charlotte Brontë , Elizabeth Gaskell , and George Eliot was a harbinger of serious critical interest in the women's literary tradition.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.
Sherry, Vincent B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 40. Gale Research.
25

10 July 1999

PB sent to the London Review of Books a poem entitled Where'er You Walk, which is probably the last she wrote.
Beer, Patricia. “Where’er You Walk”. London Review of Books, p. 6.
6

15 August 1999

PB died; after this it was discovered that she was five years older than she had publicly let on.
Mullan, John. “Obituary: Patricia Beer”. The Guardian, p. 18.
18

Biography

Birth and Family

4 November 1919

PB was born at the seaport of Exmouth in Devon, the second daughter in her family and only fourteen months younger than her sister.
She was, to use the word of her obituarist John Mullan , obscure about her birthdate, which is given wrongly—five years off—in every anthology in which her poems ever appeared, and in every reference book published in her lifetime.
Mullan, John. “Obituary: Patricia Beer”. The Guardian, p. 18.
18
Mullan, John. “Obituary: Patricia Beer”. The Guardian, p. 18.
18
Beer, Patricia. Mrs. Beer’s House. Macmillan.
126

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