Peter Wolfe
has noted that the book's probing honesty
Wolfe, Peter. Mary Renault. Twayne, 1969.
121
calls on its readers to question their moral responsibility for an urgent social problem. Because of the nature of the hero's commitment and his lost...
Literary responses
Mary Renault
Reviews of this novel were respectful, but not enthusiastic. David Sweetman
commented that it is a story stretched into a novel, and noted that it was strange for MR
to have chosen to write about...
Literary responses
Mary Renault
MR
wrote to a friend that Time was to give this novel a full page. She agreed, uncharacteristically, to give a television interview to the BBC
in 1982. To obtain her agreement, her interviewer and...
Literary responses
Dervla Murphy
David Sweetman
in the Times Literary Supplement observed that DM
was an ideal chronicler of the dismantling of colonial influence because often she thoroughly approves.
“Contemporary Authors”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Centre-LRC.
politics
Mary Renault
MR
gave an interview in South Africa to biographer David Sweetman
in which she indicated her views on the diversity of sexuality.
Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1993.
xii-xiii
Author summary
Mary Renault
MR
, who published her first book in 1939, is best known for her historical novels, and is also noted for her strong interest in same-sex love. In her present-day novels, a large proportion of...
Textual Features
Mary Renault
The hero and narrator of this novel is MR
's most fully-rounded character, according to David Sweetman
, and the first of her characters to be self-defined as a homosexual. He and his partner have...
Textual Features
Mary Renault
Biographer David Sweetman
considers an episode in the novel between the lesbian nurse Colonna and Valentine, a supervisor of nurses, to be a recreation of MR
's first sexual encounter with Julie Mullard
, who...
Textual Production
Mary Renault
MR
's first novel, Purposes of Love, has been called by critic David Sweetmanthe first novel dealing with bisexuality to reach a large and appreciative public.
Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1993.
76
It treats the lives of hospital nurses.
Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1993.
60-4, 74
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Sweetman, David. Mary Renault: A Biography. Chatto and Windus, 1993.