Brigid Brophy

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Standard Name: Brophy, Brigid
Birth Name: Brigid Antonia Susan Brophy
Married Name: Brigid Antonia Susan Levey
Titled: Brigid Antonia Susan, Lady Levey
In the novel BB 's topics are social and sexual comedy. In non-fiction (essays, criticism, polemic) she pursued her interests in causes (often for the benefit of animals or writers), in opera and other arts, in deviant or nonconformist behaviour, and in individuals with a particular appeal to her. Late in her career, which spanned the second half of the twentieth century, came moving and clear-sighted writing on her multiple sclerosis. BB disliked and opposed the study of women's writing in isolation from that of men.
Black and white photograph of Brigid Brophy wearing a zebra print sleeveless blouse over a black turtle neck. In the background, there are several bookcases visible. She is facing the camera.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Kathleen Nott
KN contributed to several joint volumes in philosophy: an essay entitled Is Rationalism Sterile? to a volume edited by H. J. Blackham in 1963, entitled Objections to Humanism, and essays to two collections edited by...
Dedications Lettice Cooper
Lettice Cooper dedicated her novel Snow and Roses to her fellow-campaigners for public lending right, Brigid Brophy and Maureen Duffy .
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.
Family and Intimate relationships Maureen Duffy
MD was living with a female partner when in summer 1967 her fellow-novelist Brigid Brophy fell in love with her. A former lover, Iris Murdoch , magnanimously hoped that this relationship would prove something stable...
Friends, Associates George Bernard Shaw
He was an important figure in the lives and careers of almost innumerable women writers: a good friend of Annie Besant , Sylvia Pankhurst , Elizabeth Robins , and Christopher St John , a romantic...
Friends, Associates Patricia Highsmith
Although she liked her solitude, PH built a wide and robust network of friendships, largely conducted by letter. She developed slowly—not on first meeting her, but later—a friendship with her fellow-novelist Brigid Brophy .
Wilson, Andrew Norman. Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. Bloomsbury, 2003.
265-6
Friends, Associates Shena Mackay
She was a close friend of Brigid Brophy from the early 1980s until Brophy's death in 1995. Brophy's brave account of her battle with multiple sclerosis pays generous tribute to SM 's loving support.
Brophy, Brigid. Baroque-’n’-Roll. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
14ff
Friends, Associates Iris Murdoch
She met Brigid Brophy (another friend who was years tempestuously a lover) in 1954. This relationship survived several crises, when Brophy took offence at Murdoch's actions or expressed dislike for her writing. IM met Elizabeth Bowen
Intertextuality and Influence Germaine Greer
In Bed with the English, which takes the form of a letter, declares its literary allegiances to be Anglo-American. It hopes to provide a straight-talking [Mary] McCarthy -[Brigid] Brophy rundown on the English...
Intertextuality and Influence Dorothy Bussy
Apart from her familial and social connections, it is for Olivia that DB is most frequently noted in literary criticism and biography. In Distance and Desire: English Boarding-School Friendships (1984), Martha Vicinus observes that Olivia...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
Brigid Brophy wrote that she valued very highly indeed the considered and considerable despair at the heart of this novel.
qtd. in
Leclercq, Florence. Elizabeth Taylor. Twayne, 1985.
85
From her dedicatee, Elizabeth Bowen , ET received with a letter praising the book's...
Literary responses Elizabeth Taylor
This volume drew an enthusiastic response from Brigid Brophy , writing in the New Statesman, who declared herself ET 's dedicated fan.
Brophy, Brigid. Don’t Never Forget. Cape, 1966.
164
Her enthusiasm was no passing feeling, for she chose to...
Literary responses Dodie Smith
Most reviewers, however, found this book childish.
qtd. in
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
272
One especially nasty review by Richard Lister (T. C. Worsley ) in the Evening Standard expressed incredulity that such a book could even be written after...
Literary responses Ivy Compton-Burnett
Brigid Brophy , reviewing this novel for the New Statesman, wrote not entirely appreciatively that the devices of the plot-making seem borrowed from the Edwardian theatre, that a positively farcical pile-up of skeletons come...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Novelist Brigid Brophy , who also likened PH to Dostoevsky ,
Dirda, Michael. “This Woman Is Dangerous”. The Guardian, 20 June 2009, p. between pp. 12 and 13.
between 12 and 13
also wrote in November 1965 that among crime writers only PH and Georges Simenon had transcended the limits of crime...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
She has been better appreciated in Britain than her native USA, and perhaps better in Europe than in Britain. Frank Richards wrote that she made a life's work of her ostracisation from the American...

Timeline

August 1945: Canadian poet, novelist, and critic Elizabeth...

Writing climate item

August 1945

Canadian poet, novelist, and critic Elizabeth Smart published her first novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (written four years previously during her first pregnancy).
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, 1990.

1965: Giles Gordon did a series of interviews for...

Women writers item

1965

Giles Gordon did a series of interviews for The Scotsman with female authors: a species of writer that at the time wasn't particularly recognised, although it certainly had been in the previous century.
Gordon, Giles. “Reading Ann Quin’s Berg”. Context: A Forum for Literary Arts and Culture, 2001.

By early November 1973: Experimental novelist B. S. Johnson prefaced...

Writing climate item

By early November 1973

Experimental novelist B. S. Johnson prefaced his short-story volume Aren't You Rather Young To Be Writing Your Memoirs? with a polemical critique listing only sixteen serious contemporary British writers.
Gordon, Giles. “Reading Ann Quin’s Berg”. Context: A Forum for Literary Arts and Culture, 2001.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
3740 (9 November 1973): 1361

23 April 1975: A major demonstration was held in Belgrave...

Writing climate item

23 April 1975

A major demonstration was held in Belgrave Square, London, in support of Public Lending Right.
Fraser, Antonia. Must You Go?. Random House of Canada, 2010.
16

Texts

Brophy, Brigid. A Guide to Public Lending Right. Gower, 1983.
Brophy, Brigid. “Afterword”. The King of a Rainy Country, Virago, 1990.
Brophy, Brigid. Baroque-’n’-Roll. Hamish Hamilton, 1987.
Brophy, Brigid. Beardsley and His World. Thames and Hudson, 1976.
Brophy, Brigid. Black and White. Cape, 1968.
Brophy, Brigid. Black Ship to Hell. Secker and Warburg, 1962.
Brophy, Brigid. Don’t Never Forget. Cape, 1966.
Brophy, Brigid et al. Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without. Rapp and Carroll, 1967.
Brophy, Brigid. Flesh. Secker and Warburg, 1962.
Brophy, Brigid. Hackenfeller’s Ape. Hart Davis, 1953.
Brophy, Brigid. In Transit. Macdonald, 1969.
Brophy, Brigid. Mozart the Dramatist. Faber and Faber, 1964.
Brophy, Brigid. Palace without Chairs. Hamish Hamilton, 1978.
Brophy, Brigid. Prancing Novelist. Macmillan, 1973.
Brophy, Brigid. Pussy Owl. BBC, 1976.
Brophy, Brigid. Reads. Penguin/Sphere, 1989.
Brophy, Brigid. Religious Education in State Schools. Fabian Society, 1967.
Brophy, Brigid. The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl. Macmillan, 1973.
Brophy, Brigid. The Burglar. Cape, 1968.
Brophy, Brigid. The Crown Princess. Collins, 1953.
Brophy, Brigid. The Finishing Touch. Secker and Warburg, 1963.
Brophy, Brigid. The King of a Rainy Country. Secker and Warburg, 1956.
Brophy, Brigid. The King of a Rainy Country. Virago, 1990.
Brophy, Brigid. The Longford Threat to Freedom. National Secular Society, 1972.
Brophy, Brigid. The Prince and the Wild Geese. Hamish Hamilton, 1983.