Angela Thirkell

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AT , having already published journalism (some of it literary) and a family memoir, launched her career as a novelist in the 1930s (her own early forties) and continued publishing for nearly thirty years at the rate of a title a year or more. Among her novels the best-known are those of the long Barsetshire series: stories of English village life where characters are effortlessly eccentric, and issues of class, nationality, gender, and sexual preference are presented with a characteristic blend of naiveté, obliquity, and straight-faced humour. She also published a children's book, a historical biography, and introductions to reprints of other authors' novels.
  • BirthName: Angela Margaret Mackail
  • Married: McInnes; Thirkell; Mrs G. L. Thirkell
    AT preferred this form of address in social life. Though she published as Angela Thirkell she did not like to be addressed in this way, or to be called Miss, as women writers often were when not writing under their married name.
    Strickland, Margot. Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist. Duckworth, 1977.
    112
  • Pseudonym: Leslie Parker

Milestones

30 January 1890

Angela Margaret Mackail (later AT ) was born at 27 Young Street, Kensington, London, the eldest child in the Mackail family.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

June 1921

AT , in Australia and pressed for both money and occupation, began writing seriously for publication by placing An Interview with J. M. Barrie in The Forum (on the women's page).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

29 January 1961

AT died at Birtley House , at Bramley in Surrey, of aplastic anaemia.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

November 1961

AT 's final novel, Three Score and Ten, set in Barchester, was finished by C. A. Lejeune after Thirkell's death.
The British National Bibliography. Council of the British National Bibliography; British Library, Bibliographic Services Division, 1950.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Biography

Birth and Family

30 January 1890

Angela Margaret Mackail (later AT ) was born at 27 Young Street, Kensington, London, the eldest child in the Mackail family.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.