Brigid Brophy

-
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
Textual Features Angela Brazil
Her protagonist Lesbia Ferrars, with her large dreamy eyes
Freeman, Gillian. The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Allen Lane.
81
and Irish/Highland blood (she is Celtic to the core),
Freeman, Gillian. The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Allen Lane.
81
is a self-portrait, but Lesbia's experiences as a governess after leaving school are those...
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 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...
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.
politics Lettice Cooper
She also participated in the campaign for authors' public lending right, having been a founder-member with Brigid Brophy , Maureen Duffy , and others, of Writers' Action Group .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Textual Production Nancy Cunard
This reached print only two years before a book on the same outrageously camp figure by a younger writer, Brigid Brophy . The British Library keeps its copy in the category of books likely to...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
MD organised a Prop Art (propaganda art) Exhibition in London, together with Brigid Brophy .
Duffy, Maureen. The Microcosm. Virago.
prelims
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...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
MD has undertaken a number of positions in public life, working tirelessly to improve the lot of authors—and of laboratory animals. Along with Brigid Brophy and 148 others, she was a signatory of The Rights...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
This organization, which MD set up together with her colleague Brigid Brophy , had as its aim to fight for loans-based, flat rate, government-funded Public Lending Right, to be paid to authors, not publishers:
Platt, Edward. “25 Years fighting for writers’ rights”. ALCS News, No. 21, pp. 4-5.
4-5
Occupation Maureen Duffy
Before the general election of May 1979, MD and Brigid Brophy offered a job at ALCS to Elizabeth Thomas (advisor to Michael Foot ) in case Labour should lose.
Thomas, Elizabeth. “25th Anniversary: Elizabeth Thomas remembers Maureen and Brigid”. ALCS News, No. 21, p. 6.
6
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...
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.
265-6
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Novelist Brigid Brophy , who also likened PH to Dostoevsky ,
Dirda, Michael. “This Woman Is Dangerous”. The Guardian, 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).

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.

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.

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.
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.