Antonia White

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AW found composition a torment, suffered from recurrent writer's block, and discarded innumerable drafts of everything she wrote. Yet besides working as a journalist, she left more than thirty translations, four heavily autobiographical novels, some stories and poems, a play, a fragment of autobiography, two children's books, letters, and diaries amounting to more than a million words.
Vaux, Anna. “Biscuits. Oh good!”. London Review of Books, 27 May 1999, pp. 32-4.
32
  • BirthName: Eirene Adeline Botting
    The unusually precise transliteration of Eirene (Greek for peace) reflected her father's classical expertise.

  • Nickname: Tony
  • Self-constructed: Antonia White
    She assumed this name fairly early on. The surname was her mother's birth name.
  • Pseudonyms: Ann Jeffrey
    Chitty, Susan. Now To My Mother. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1985.
    67
    ; Jane Marshall
    Chitty, Susan. Now To My Mother. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1985.
    114

Milestones

31 March 1899

Eirene Adeline Botting (later AW ) was born in London.
Who Was Who. A. and C. Black, 1897–2025, Many volumes.

By November 1932

AW completed the first draft of her first novel, Frost in May.
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape, 1998.
149

July 1933

AW published her first-completed, often-rejected novel, Frost in May; it later brought her fame.
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape, 1998.
153

May 1978

The women's publishing house Virago Press reprinted AW 's Frost in May as the first title in the later famous Virago Modern Classics series.
Dunn, Jane. Antonia White: A Life. Jonathan Cape, 1998.
417, 420

10 April 1980

AW died of cancer after nearly two weeks in a coma.
Who Was Who. A. and C. Black, 1897–2025, Many volumes.

Biography

Birth and Family

31 March 1899

Eirene Adeline Botting (later AW ) was born in London.
Who Was Who. A. and C. Black, 1897–2025, Many volumes.

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