Antonia Fraser

Standard Name: Fraser, Antonia
Birth Name: Antonia Pakenham
Styled: Lady Antonia Pakenham
Married Name: Lady Antonia Fraser
Married Name: Lady Antonia Pinter
The writing of AF , who published her first book in 1954 and remains active in the early twenty-first century, falls into several distinct categories. She engaged first in children's writing, then in historical scholarship, much of it biographical and concerned with the lives of women in particular, then in detective fiction. She has also published journalism and edited anthologies. Most highly regarded as a historian, she has also had success with her thrillers and recent memoirs.
Black-and-white portrait photo of Antonia Fraser, 23 January 1969. She has long blonde hair which is half-up, and wears a white blouse with a lacy collar under a dark vest. She has long lower eyelashes.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Harold Pinter
HP intended to marry Antonia Fraser on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, but at the last moment Vivien Merchant refused to sign the decree absolute.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
120-1
politics Harold Pinter
HP and Antonia Fraser hosted a dinner meeting which launched an informal Labour philosophy group calling itself therefore the June 20 Group .
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
153-5
Textual Production Harold Pinter
HP and his wife Antonia Fraser received advance, numbered copies of Pinter's Poems, edited by her and published by the Greville Press .
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
263
Textual Production Harold Pinter
The Guardian carried a poem by the still living HP entitled To my Wife: You took my hand / You watched me die / And found my life / You were my life /...
Textual Production Harold Pinter
Eighteen months before he died, HP composed a poem of farewell to Antonia Fraser that begins: I shall miss you so much when I'm dead.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
313
Performance of text Harold Pinter
HP and Antonia Fraser performed the two parts in his sketch Apart From That, at the Inner Temple in London, to benefit a family charity, the Patrick Pakenham Scholarships for young ex-offenders.
“Harold Pinter (1930 - 2008)”. doollee.com: Playwrights.
Cultural formation Harold Pinter
Pinter's working-class roots were always emphasized in the media, particularly at the time of his marriage to Antonia Fraser , an earl's daughter. But Fraser argues that although technically born into the working class, he...
Friends, Associates Ruth Rendell
Winterson said, She was the mother I never had—wise, benign, loving and always there.
Brooks, Libby. “Ruth Rendell: Dark lady of whodunnits”. The Guardian, pp. 16-19.
19
RR 's other literary friends included Antonia Fraser and P. D. James . Her friendship with Peter Kemp dated from...
Residence Vita Sackville-West
In March 1975 Antonia Fraser visited Sissinghurst and wrote in her diary: Slept in Vita's bedroom, cold but grand. No ghosts.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada.
54
Reception Agnes Strickland
Lives of the Queens of England was frequently reprinted with additions and revisions; the 1852 edition, regarded as definitive, was reprinted in 1972 with an introduction by the Stricklands' fellow-biographer Antonia Fraser . Fraser 's...
Textual Production Emma Tennant
On the recommendation of Lady Antonia Fraser , ET was commissioned by St Martin's Press to write the second sequel to Margaret Mitchell 's American classic, Gone With the Wind.
Lyall, Sarah. “It’s hard to keep a good sequel secret”. New York Times, p. C1, C12.
C1, C12
Lyall, Sarah. “Book sequel creates a new civil war”. New York Times, p. D7.
D7
Publishing Emma Tennant
ET , who had been taken on in an attempt to avoid negative reviews like those that had plagued Alexandra Ripley 's sequel, Scarlett, 1991, finished the book four months ahead of schedule, but...
Publishing Anthony Trollope
Doctor Thorne, the third novel in the series, was published by Smith Elder in 1858.
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
191
Ruth Rendell wrote an introduction to a Penguin edition in 1991. The fourth in the series, Framley Parsonage...
Cultural formation Marina Warner
In England, MW had a comfortable middle-class upbringing. Her godfather was crime reformer Lord Longford (father of historian and novelist Antonia Fraser ). A writer, Violet Trefusis , was her godmother and another novelist, Lawrence Durrell
Occupation Rebecca West
The prize went to P. H. Newby 's Something to Answer For, which according to Kermode years later was a compromise decision. Dame Rebecca didn't dislike it as much as nearly all the others...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Fraser, Antonia, and Harold Pinter. “The US president nukes the world: read Harold Pinter’s newly discovered play”. theguardian.com.
Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984.
Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England. Methuen, 1985.
Fraser, Antonia. The Wild Island. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.
Fraser, Antonia. “Writers’ Rooms”. theguardian.com.
Fraser, Antonia. Your Royal Hostage. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987.