Fay Weldon

22 September 1931

Standard Name: Weldon, Fay

Birth Name: Franklin Birkinshaw

Nickname: Fay

Self-constructed Name: Fay Davies

Married Name: Franklin Bateman

Married Name: Franklin Weldon

Married Name: Franklin Fox

Internationally acclaimed as a novelist, playwright and essayist, FW is a prolific writer whose work ranges over many genres and media, and in 2017 amounted to thirty-four novels, seven short-story volumes, three books for children, and six non-fictional works.

Armitstead, Claire. “Fay Weldon: ’Feminism was a success, but then you lose a generation’”. theguardian.com.

Her fiction is translated into over a dozen languages. She has written numerous television and radio dramas, stage plays, non-fictional articles and studies, autobiography and experimental or mock autobiography. She has never, she says, written poetry.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships	William Empson	Hetta broadcast during the war to South Africa (which was much targeted by Nazi propaganda) under the name of Soekie Trottle, and while Peking was under siege by the Communists for six weeks in...
Friends, Associates	Elaine Feinstein	While she was teaching at Essex, EF met a number of poets, including Ed Dorn , who fed her interest in American poetry. She was also involved during these years with a group including Tom Pickard
Intertextuality and Influence	Meiling Jin	In the introduction to the book of poems that was her first publication, MJ noted that poetry was a form of expression that comes easier to me than most others. This state of affairs was...
Intertextuality and Influence	Rosalind Coward	Feminism no longer has to be reiterated but simply breathed,RC declares. Coward, Rosalind. Sacred Cows. HarperCollins. 7 She argues that whereas in the 1970s feminism was a powerful movement for challenging cultural and judicial norms that persistently disadvantaged women...
Intertextuality and Influence	Ann Oakley	This is the first of AO 's novels without a central female protagonist; and the result is a certain lack of focus. The story is set at a resort on the coast of Turkey...
Literary responses	Penelope Lively	Fay Weldon calls this novel James ian . . . in its complexities and its carefulness. Lively, Penelope. Heat Wave. HarperPerennial. back cover
Literary responses	Shena Mackay	SM 's fellow-novelists greeted this work with a chorus of praise. Anita Brookner called it something quite rare . . . a rite of passage which will leave few readers unaffected. Mackay, Shena. The Orchard on Fire. Vintage. prelims Fay Weldon said...
Literary responses	Zoë Fairbairns	The Times Literary Supplement reviewer, Frank Pike , judged the novel ambitious yet unpretentious. Pike, Frank. “Catching Up: Fiction”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 4003, p. 104. 104 He quoted a remark by Fay Weldon on its jacket, calling ZFa female H. G. Wells , Pike, Frank. “Catching Up: Fiction”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 4003, p. 104. 104
Literary responses	Zoë Fairbairns	Savkar Altinel in the Times Literary Supplement was highly critical of this novel, Altinel, Savkar. “Man Trouble”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 4237, p. 676. 676 but the following year Patricia Craig , in the same journal, was more appreciative, crediting ZF with a sure touch with...
Literary responses	Ali Smith	Some reviewers have taken umbrage at the perceived anti-capitalism of AS ' novel, among them Michael Upchurch of The New York Times, who complained at Smith's sympathetic portrayal of Else. He rendered this as...
Literary responses	Zoë Fairbairns	Spare Rib gave this novel an appreciative review as a subtly feminist version of the power-sex-and-money sagas.Fay Weldon (in a review, not a blurb) called it such fun . . . so perspicacious, so...
Literary responses	Eva Figes	Fay Weldon praised this novel as half poetry, half prose. Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Literary responses	Rebecca West	Some critics have taken issue with the sudden shift in tone, characterisation, and focus in Book Two. Harold Orel, for instance, comments that the second part resembles a case history drawn from some psychiatrist's notebook...
Literary responses	Maggie Gee	MG says that reviews were almost uniformly ecstatic. The book was praised by Rose Tremain and listed as Book of the Week by the Mail on Sunday. Gee, Maggie. My Animal Life. Telegram Books. 189 Fay Weldon , calling this novel...
Literary responses	Rebecca West	RW received a great deal of fan mail in response to this novel, which recent critics count among her best. Rollyson, Carl. Rebecca West: A Saga of the Century. Hodder and Stoughton. 277 Novelist Fay Weldon has described Richard Quin, the younger brother, as one of the...

Timeline

22 September 1955

BBC television acquired its first commercially sponsored competitor when ITV (Independent Television) began broadcasting alternative programmes.

June 1972

Spare Rib, a feminist periodical issued monthly by Spare Ribs from 27 Clerkenwell Close, London, was launched to put women's liberation on the news stands.

Doughan, David, and Denise Sanchez. Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984. Harvester Press.

August 2007

The British Council , promoter of British culture in other countries, cut by forty million US dollars the cost of its activity in Europe, in order to expand its activities in the Middle East and...

Texts

Weldon, Fay. Action Replay. Samuel French, 1980.

Weldon, Fay. Affliction. HarperCollins, 1993.

Weldon, Fay. Auto da Fay. Flamingo, 2002.

Weldon, Fay. Big Women. Flamingo, 1997.

Weldon, Fay. “Bottom Drawer: What Fay Weldon never got published”. Mslexia, No. 38, p. 22.

Weldon, Fay. Chalcot Crescent. Atlantic Books Corvus, 2009.

Weldon, Fay. Darcy’s Utopia. Collins, 1990.

Weldon, Fay. Death of a She Devil. Head of Zeus, 2017.

Weldon, Fay. Down Among the Women. Heinemann, 1971.

Weldon, Fay. Female Friends. Heinemann, 1975.

Weldon, Fay, and Mary McKerrow. “Foreword”. Mary Brunton, The Forgotten Scottish Novelist, Orcadian, 2001, p. xi - xii.

Weldon, Fay. Growing Rich. Flamingo, 1992.

Weldon, Fay. Habits of the House. Head of Zeus, 2012.

Weldon, Fay. I Love My Love. Samuel French, 1984.

Trollope, Joanna, and Fay Weldon. Joanna Trollope and Fay Weldon discuss Jane Austen. http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2014/jan/03/jane-austen-weldon-trollope-podcast.

Weldon, Fay. Kehua!. Atlantic Corvus, 2010.

Weldon, Fay. Leader of the Band. Hodder and Stoughton, 1988.

Weldon, Fay. Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen. Michael Joseph/Rainbird, 1984.

Weldon, Fay. Life Force. HarperCollins, 1992.

Weldon, Fay. Mantrapped. Fourth Estate, 2004.

Weldon, Fay. “Me and My Shadows”. On Gender and Writing, edited by Michelene Wandor, Pandora Press, 1983, pp. 160-5.

Weldon, Fay. Mischief: Fay Weldon Selects Her Best Short Stories. Head of Zeus, 2015.

Weldon, Fay. Moon over Minneapolis. HarperCollins, 1991.

Weldon, Fay, and Elaine Feinstein, editors. New Stories 4. Hutchinson, 1979.

Weldon, Fay. Polaris. Penguin, 1989.