Sarah Waters

Standard Name: Waters, Sarah
SW made her high-profile literary debut in 1998 with her first lesbian historical novel, Tipping the Velvet (which had been rejected by many publishers before it reached print). Her novels since then have been all historical and nearly all lesbian, but interestingly varied in tone and setting.
Colour photograph of Sarah Waters displayng a copy of her book "The Night Watch", 2006. She leans forward, with short blonde-streaked hair, blue eyes, and a smile, wearing a black shirt and holding a pen.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Angela Thirkell
Some readers dropped her because of this change. Others sent what she called hate letters.
qtd. in
Strickland, Margot. Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist. Duckworth, 1977.
145
In 2010 Sarah Waters , who used this book in writing The Little Stranger, classified it as typical...
Intertextuality and Influence Josephine Tey
Ruth Rendell uses it as a point of reference in her crime novel Harm Done, 1999. Her investigator, Wexford, suggests to a confident young woman claiming to have been kidnapped that she in turn...
Literary responses Angela Carter
In early 2019 Chris Power picked The Company of Wolves as one of the best of short stories.
“Bite-sized: 50 great short stories, chosen by Hilary Mantel, George Saunders and more”. theguardian.com, 2 Feb. 2019.
This followed a memory from Sarah Waters of her first reading of The Bloody Chamber at seventeen:...
Literary responses Margaret Drabble
Lucy Scholes , reviewing The Dark Flood Rises for The Independent, was moved to quote Edward Said 's definition of a late artistic style not as harmony and resolution but as intransigence, difficulty, and...
Literary responses Josephine Tey
Nancy Ellen Talburt believes this is the best executed of [JT 's] novels, and the richest in general interest.
Bargainnier, Earl F., editor. 10 Women of Mystery. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1981.
44
Several critics agree that it is her best work. Sarah Waters observes that it...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
One of the first to review this novel was Rosamond Lehmann ; some of her commendatory phrases are still in use in promotional material from Virago .
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books, 2009.
171
Today Sarah Waters (who published Tipping the...
Literary responses Iris Murdoch
The first monograph on IM was that of 1965 by A. S. Byatt , who faulted her for the inconsistency of her fiction with her expressed philosophic views. This study provoked further academic discussion, and...
Reception A. S. Byatt
David Jays , in an article confessing his preference for the current lionesses to the lions among British novelists—a preference, that is, for ASB , Zadie Smith , A. L. Kennedy , Sarah Waters ...
Textual Features Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy is a northern industrial town, quiet and complacent but on closer examination seething with a violence that also anchors the story's temporal frame between the Napoleonic Wars and the revolutions of 1848. Novelist Sarah Waters
Textual Features Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Peters advises Richard Marwood to feign madness to escape the scaffold, engineers his rescue from the lunatic asylum eight years later, and aids him in tracking down and gathering evidence against the fiendishly elusive North...
Textual Features Angela Thirkell
Her novels were becoming, it was generally agreed, more backward-looking and less generous in their presentation of character. Sarah Waters found in it a picture of mid-century middle-class fantasies and fears.
Waters, Sarah. “Behind the Book”. The London Library Magazine, No. 9, 1 Sept.–30 Nov. 2010, p. 10.
10

Timeline

1845: Victoria Park in East London was opened to...

Building item

1845

Victoria Park in East London was opened to the public as the first public park in Britain. (The more famous London parks belonged to the Crown.) Situated among the poor, working-class districts of the East...

January 1996: Virago Press resumed operations as an imprint...

Building item

January 1996

Virago Press resumed operations as an imprint of another larger company, Little Brown . Its board took the decision to sell in 1995, two years after its twentieth birthday.
“The History of Virago”. Virago, 2012.

22 October 2002: The Booker Prize was awarded for the first...

Writing climate item

22 October 2002

The Booker Prize was awarded for the first time as the Man Booker Prize, its sponsorship having passed to the Man Group , a Canadian venture capital company.
“Booker Prize 2002”. Guardian Unlimited.

14 September 2011: The clock began ticking for a five-week period...

Writing climate item

14 September 2011

The clock began ticking for a five-week period during which, under the auspices of the Society of Authors , a number of British authors and tweeters (including Sarah Waters ) collaborated on a tweetathon...

Texts

Waters, Sarah. Affinity. Virago, 1999.
Willis, Chris et al. “Afterword”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, 2003, pp. 408-14.
Waters, Sarah. “Behind the Book”. The London Library Magazine, No. 9, p. 10.
Waters, Sarah. “Best holiday reads— part one”. theguardian.com.
Waters, Sarah. “Books that made me”. theguardian.com.
Waters, Sarah. Fingersmith. Virago, 2002.
Waters, Sarah. “Foreword”. Dancing with Mr Darcy, Honno, 2009, pp. 1-4.
Waters, Sarah, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. “Introduction”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, 2003, p. xv - xxiv.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth et al. “My First Novel”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, 2003, pp. 415-27.
Waters, Sarah. “On My Radar”. The Observer, p. New Review 3.
Waters, Sarah. The Little Stranger. Virago, 2009.
Waters, Sarah. The Little Stranger. Virago, 2010.
Waters, Sarah. The Night Watch. Virago, 2006.
Waters, Sarah. The Paying Guests. Virago, 2014.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, and Sarah Waters. The Trail of the Serpent. Editor Willis, Chris, Modern Library, 2003.
Waters, Sarah. Tipping the Velvet. Virago, 1998.
Waters, Sarah. Tipping the Velvet. Virago, 2006.
Waters, Sarah. “Writers’ Lives”. theguardian.com.