Elizabeth Taylor

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Standard Name: Taylor, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Coles
Married Name: Elizabeth Taylor
ET published, during the mid to late twentieth century, twelve novels, four collections of short stories, and a handful of essays. As a writer of high calibre whose favourite effects are built on understatement and irony, she has been persistently undervalued by commentators.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Dedications Elizabeth Jane Howard
She went back to writing stories because the shorter form seemed more compatible with the life she was leading while in charge of a large family establishment in the country. She had also lost confidence...
Family and Intimate relationships Barbara Pym
Rupert Gleadow cared about BP a great deal, but their romance was an experience which she chose to downplay in her memory and writing. Her long, unsuccessful pursuit of Henry Harvey , who both attracted...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Jane Howard
Her friends during the 1950s included Stephen and Natasha Spender , Alec Waugh , Margaret Lane , Malcolm Sargent , and Joyce Grenfell . She also met Cyril Connolly , Olivia Manning , Stevie Smith
Friends, Associates Barbara Pym
Authors BP , Mary Renault , and Elizabeth Taylor attended a party in Athens given by Pym's longtime friend the novelist and critic Robert Liddell .
Pym, Barbara. A Very Private Eye. Editors Holt, Hazel and Hilary Pym, Macmillan, 1984.
227
Friends, Associates Ivy Compton-Burnett
Liddell was to remain one of ICB 's close friends. She maintained a benevolent, almost aunt-like relationship with him, and although resident abroad he was an important source of support after Jourdain's death. He later...
Friends, Associates Ivy Compton-Burnett
After Jourdain's death, ICB 's circle of friends included George Furlong , Rex Brandreth , Barbara and Walter Robinson , Soame Jenyns , Elizabeth Taylor , Sonia Orwell (widow of the writer George Orwell), Australian-born...
Friends, Associates Barbara Pym
BP wrote steadily throughout her life, regardless of changes in occupation. One of the benefits of her first publication, Some Tame Gazelle, in 1950 was the introduction of various authors into her personal and...
Intertextuality and Influence Dorothy Whipple
DW was an unacknowledged favourite of Ivy Compton-Burnett and evidently of Elizabeth Taylor too, since Taylor borrowed for her novel Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont from the opening of a story among Whipple's papers, which...
Intertextuality and Influence Ethel M. Dell
Taylor 's romantic-novelist heroine numbers EMD among her models, and quotes this passage with enthusiasm.
Intertextuality and Influence Zoë Fairbairns
Most of the novel is spent uncovering truths about these two major characters: Heather, who seeks knowledge about her birth father (and enters briefly into rivalry with her mother, Julia, over the same man), and...
Intertextuality and Influence Sarah Waters
SW puts in puts in something like a regular work day when writing, but keeps going to all hours when re-writing. Despite her success, she still finds the process largely torture. And yet [s]tarting...
Literary responses Elizabeth Jenkins
The novel was criticised by some for its exclusively upper-middle-class reach—a view which was energetically countered by Rose Macaulay on a radio programme.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson, 2004.
107
The Times Literary Supplement welcomed with joy a novel where the...
Literary responses Olivia Manning
This book evoked a double-edged response from Ivy Compton-Burnett who, writing to Elizabeth Taylor , said: It really is full of very good descriptions. Quite excellent descriptions. I don't know if you care for descriptions...
Literary responses Betty Miller
Her Times obituary might be regarded as damning her novels with faint praise. It called her essentially a feminine novelist—using the epithet with no derogatory connotation—applying her talent to sensitive explorations of feeling.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(27 November 1965): 10
Literary responses Ivy Compton-Burnett
Printed praise came from Stevie Smith and Raymond Mortimer among others. Elizabeth Taylor noticed how the reviewers' imagery harped on weapons: rapiers, axes, stilettos, knives and grenades.
Spurling, Hilary. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart. Hodder and Stoughton, 1984.
213

Timeline

1 January 1916
The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast in Hanover Square, London.
21 February 1924
The first issue appeared of the New Yorkermagazine (still going strong in the twenty-first century).
Borne Back Daily. http://borneback.com/ , http://borneback.com/ .
21 February 2011
26 November 1945
The film Brief Encounter, starring actress Celia Johnson , directed by David Lean , based on a play by Noël Coward , had its English premiere.
8 May 2008
Virago Press marked thirty years of Virago Modern Classics by re-issuing works by Barbara Pym , E. M. Delafield , Elizabeth Taylor , Jacqueline Susann , Muriel Spark , Helene Hanff , Zora Neale Hurston , and Angela Carter .

Texts

Taylor, Elizabeth. A Dedicated Man, and Other Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1965.
Taylor, Elizabeth. A Game of Hide-and-Seek. Peter Davies, 1951.
Taylor, Elizabeth. A View of the Harbour. Peter Davies, 1947.
Taylor, Elizabeth. A Wreath of Roses. Peter Davies, 1949.
Taylor, Elizabeth. Angel. Peter Davies, 1957.
Taylor, Elizabeth, and Paul Bailey. Angel. Virago, 1984.
Taylor, Elizabeth. At Mrs. Lippincote’s. Peter Davies, 1945.
Taylor, Elizabeth. Blaming. Chatto and Windus, 1976.
Taylor, Elizabeth. Hester Lilly, and Other Stories. Peter Davies, 1954.
Taylor, Elizabeth. In a Summer Season. Peter Davies, 1961.
Taylor, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. Angel, edited by Paul Bailey, Virago, 1989, p. v - ix.
Taylor, Elizabeth. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. Chatto and Windus, 1971.
Taylor, Elizabeth. Palladian. Peter Davies, 1946.
Taylor, Elizabeth. The Blush, and Other Stories. Peter Davies, 1958.
Taylor, Elizabeth. The Devastating Boys, and Other Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1972.
Taylor, Elizabeth. The Sleeping Beauty. Peter Davies, 1953.
Taylor, Elizabeth. The Soul of Kindness. Chatto and Windus, 1964.
Taylor, Elizabeth. The Wedding Group. Chatto and Windus, 1968.