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	Author name Sort ascending	Excerpt
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	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...
Textual Features	Michelene Wandor	This includes work by Nora Bartlett , Sara Maitland , Judith Kazantzis , Wendy Mulford , Libby Houston , Cora Kaplan , Michèle Roberts , Angela Carter , Noel Greig , Rozsika Parker , Alison Hennegan
Textual Production	Joanna Trollope	JT 's modernised retelling of Sense and Sensibility (published in October 2013), is one of a series of projected Jane Austen updates. In January 2014 Trollope discussed Austen in a podcast with Fay Weldon in...
Publishing	Mary Stott	Together with Pamela Anderson and Fay Weldon , Mary Stott published Simple Steps to Public Life, with illustrations by Tony Bethall . 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.
Textual Production	Christina Stead	This was a novel about her former boyfriend Keith Duncan . It began in the early 1930s as The Young Man Will Go Far then became The Travelling Scholar before acquiring its final title. Rowley, Hazel. Christina Stead: A Biography. Secker and Warburg. 137
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...
Occupation	Bernice Rubens	When she first moved to London she worked as a so-called lady's maid (a job for which she was totally unqualified). Rubens, Bernice. When I Grow Up. Time Warner Books. 74-5 Then she was taken on to teach English at Burgess Hill School ...
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...
Travel	Iris Murdoch	After IM 's stimulating visit to Paris in 1947, that city became permanently necessary in her life. Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins. 254-5 Later, Murdoch and her husband visited many parts of the world, either on holiday (Scotland,...
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	Penelope Lively	Fay Weldon calls this novel James ian . . . in its complexities and its carefulness. Lively, Penelope. Heat Wave. HarperPerennial. back cover
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...
Performance of text	Ann Jellicoe	AJ produced another community play for Lyme Regis: Western Women, based on a story by Fay Weldon . “Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC. 233 Jellicoe, Ann. Community Plays. Methuen. 31
Occupation	Ann Jellicoe	The Trust set out to produce historical community plays with west-country associations, including works written for it by Fay Weldon and David Edgar . With some difficulty, AJ succeeded in securing ongoing funding for it...

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.