Diana Athill

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Standard Name: Athill, Diana
Birth Name: Diana Athill
During the years of the mid-twentieth century that she worked in publishing, DA herself published translations, short stories, and a novel. She is, however, best-known for her several volumes of memoirs (one of them a collection of letters), which present both her professional and her personal life with artistry, feeling, and with unusual candour.
Photo of Diana Athill, seated, in Toronto to be interviewed by Alice Munro at the Inernational Festival of Authors, 20 October 2009.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Doris Lessing
The Guardian marked the book's fiftieth anniversary in 2012 with reflections on it by women of four generations. Diana Athill (born in 1917) says she took against it on its first appearance; she found it...
Material Conditions of Writing Jean Rhys
Rhys worked over her manuscripts painstakingly. Her editor Diana Athill comments that she was a meticulous stylist, never submitting a manuscript until it was perfectly finished. She was so compulsive in this regard that her...
Publishing Jean Rhys
On 3 May, shortly before the BBC aired the broadcast adapted from Good Morning, Midnight, the Radio Times carried an article by Selma vas Diaz about Rhys, which reported that she was now busy...
Publishing Jean Rhys
Before the book was published, and while her husband was suffering his final illness, she was, as always, financially destitute. By February 1966, her editor Diana Athill , her publisher André Deutsch , and publisher...
Publishing Molly Keane
Her children were grown up and she was, she says, doing nothing. She began writing in the same secrecy as at the beginning of her career, still finding the process painful.
Chamberlain, Mary, editor. Writing Lives: Conversations Between Women Writers. Virago Press, 1988.
131
Billy Collins ,...
Textual Production Jean Rhys
JR 's literary executor, Francis Wyndham , and her editor and friend Diana Athill , posthumously published a selection entitled Jean Rhys Letters, 1931-1966.
Wyndham, Francis, and Jean Rhys. “Introduction”. Jean Rhys Letters, 1931-1966, Deutsch, 1984, pp. 9-12.
9-10
Textual Production Molly Keane
Phipps went on to publish Molly Keane. A Life in 2017, with a preface by Diana Athill .
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, http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Textual Production Jean Rhys
JR 's Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography appeared posthumously, edited by Diana Athill : she completed the section on her childhood in Dominica, but not that on her adult life in England and France.
Athill, Diana, and Jean Rhys. “Jean Rhys and her Autobiography”. Smile Please, Deutsch, 1979, pp. 5-15.
7-9
Mellown, Elgin W. Jean Rhys: A Descriptive and Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism. Garland, 1984.
110-11

Timeline

Late 1945
André Deutsch established the publishing firm Allan Wingate in Great Cumberland Street, London.
1951
André Deutsch , with the help of Jack Newth (president of the Publishers Association ) and Edmond Seagrave (editor of Bookseller), founded André Deutsch Limited at 12 Thayer Street, London.

Texts

Athill, Diana. A Florence Diary. Granta, 2016.
Athill, Diana. After a Funeral. Cape, 1986.
Athill, Diana. Alive, Alive Oh!. Granta Books, 2015.
Athill, Diana. An Unavoidable Delay, and Other Stories. Doubleday, 1962.
Athill, Diana. Don’t Look at Me Like That. Viking, 1967.
Athill, Diana. Don’t Look at Me Like That. Chatto and Windus, 1967.
Athill, Diana. “Fail better”. The Guardian, p. Review 3.
Athill, Diana. Instead of a Book. Letters to a Friend. Granta, 2011.
Athill, Diana. Instead of a Letter. Chatto and Windus, 1963.
Jack, Ian, and Diana Athill. “Introduction”. Life Class. The Selected Memoirs of Diana Athill, Granta, 2009, p. vii - xviii.
Athill, Diana, and Jean Rhys. “Jean Rhys and her Autobiography”. Smile Please, Deutsch, 1979, pp. 5-15.
Athill, Diana. Letters to a Friend. Norton, 2012.
Athill, Diana. Life Class: The Selected Memoirs of Diana Athill. Granta, 2009.
Athill, Diana. Make Believe: A True Story. Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993.
Athill, Diana. Make Believe: A True Story. Steerforth Press, 1993.
Athill, Diana. Midsummer Night in the Workhouse. Persephone, 2011.
Rhys, Jean, and Diana Athill. Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography. Deutsch, 1979.
Athill, Diana. Somewhere Towards the End. Granta, 2008.
Athill, Diana. Stet. Granta Books, 2000.
Athill, Diana, Margaret Drabble, Rachel Cusk, and Natalie Hanman. “Who am I? Who do I want to be?”. The Guardian, Vol.
review 2-4
.
Athill, Diana. “Writers’ Rooms”. theguardian.com.
Athill, Diana. Yesterday Morning. Granta, 2002.