Elizabeth Jenkins

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Standard Name: Jenkins, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Margaret Elizabeth Heald Jenkins
EJ , whose productive period extended from just after World War Two into the twenty-first century, was the author of half a dozen historical biographies and twice that many novels (several of which portray women in the position of victims of one kind or another), besides a play, book reviews, and a memoir. Some of her works have been often reprinted.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Theodora Benson
TB enjoyed a wide circle of friends both literary and non-literary. The former included Rose Macaulay and Howard Spring . She met her future collaborator Betty Askwith (daughter of an old friend of her mother's)...
Occupation Theodora Benson
During the Second World War TB worked for the Ministry of Information , writing Speaker's Notes, material for public speeches explaining the war effort.Elizabeth Jenkins , her assistant, said she was brilliant at this...
Residence Theodora Benson
Late in the second world war she was living in a small flat perched at the top of one of the tall buildings of Piccadilly, with no storage space and precious possessions stacked around...
death Theodora Benson
Her brother-in-law persuaded a reluctant Elizabeth Jenkins to write her Times obituary.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
139
Literary responses Theodora Benson
Richard Sunne wrote in the New Statesman and Nation of Shallow Water, Miss Benson's soufflé is perfect, and she serves it under a magical salamander, so that each piece retains its lightness and its...
Literary responses Theodora Benson
Her friend Elizabeth Jenkins referred years later to Benson's amateurish but charming novels.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
59
She wrote that TB had enjoyed a succès d'estime with her early works in the pensive, débutante style. After that she...
Publishing Theodora Benson
Elizabeth Jenkins wrote that before the second world war TB had a brilliant, brief career in popular journalism, like the flash of a kingfisher across a stream.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
59
After the war she was commissioned by...
Literary responses Theodora Benson
Elizabeth Jenkins wrote that The White Sea Monkey was not only the most terrifying story I ever read, but the most characteristic expression of her, in its agonized compassion and its understanding of the human...
Textual Production Theodora Benson
As Elizabeth Jenkins told it, this began as an idea for a reportage novel illuminating the secrets of some particular métier. Jenkins hoped for something of morbid decadence reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe , but...
Literary Setting Elizabeth Bowen
The novel has two heroines: Portia, a fifteen-year-old, and Anna Quayne, wife of Thomas Quayne. Portia, Thomas' half-sister, comes to live with the Quaynes in their Regent's Park house (based on EB 's own London...
Literary responses Elizabeth Bowen
Glendinning writes: She is what happened after Bloomsbury; she is the link that connects Virginia Woolf with Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark .
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf.
xv
Elizabeth Jenkins characteristically remarked that as Britain's leading woman of letters...
Cultural formation Elizabeth Bowen
Elizabeth Jenkins observed that EB , elegant as she was in style, was highly sexed and attractive to men. She bore about her the aroma of passionate experiences.Molly Keane wrote that at parties all...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Bowen
EB loved Oxford (where she and her husband spent ten years) and became a social success there. She met and became friends with John and Susan Buchan , and it was through them that she...
Residence Elizabeth Bowen
EB later speculated about what her feelings would be if Bowen's Court were to burn down. Elizabeth Jenkins found it a beautiful and mournful spectacle. . . . so scantily furnished as to seem almost...
Textual Production Agatha Christie
The origin of the stage play was a radio play. Elizabeth Jenkins tells a story that this was based on the actual killing of a war evacuee by the farmer with whom he and his...

Timeline

25-26 June 1483: The child King Edward V was deposed, and...

National or international item

25-26 June 1483

The child King Edward V was deposed, and Richard III assumed the throne of England.

22 July 1949: The house in the village of Chawton in Hampshire...

Women writers item

22 July 1949

The house in the village of Chawton in Hampshire where Jane Austen lived with her mother and sister from 1809 until her death was opened to the public, having been bought for three thousand pounds...

Early 1957: John Braine's novel Room at the Top was published...

Writing climate item

Early 1957

John Braine 's novelRoom at the Top was published by Gollancz after eight rejections, on the advice of Elizabeth Jenkins in her capacity as publisher's reader.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
(1 March 1957): 125
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
107-8

Texts

Jenkins, Elizabeth. A Silent Joy. Constable, 1992.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Brightness. Victor Gollancz, 1963.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Dr. Gully. Joseph, 1971.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Leicester. Gollancz, 1961.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Elizabeth the Great. Gollancz, 1958.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Harriet. Gollancz, 1934.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Henry Fielding. Home & Van Thal, 1947.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. “Hon. Theodora Benson”. Times, No. 57452, p. 8.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Honey. Gollancz, 1968.
Jenkins, Sir Michael, and Elizabeth Jenkins. “Introduction”. The View from Downshire Hill: A Memoir, Michael Russell, 2004, pp. 9-12.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Jane Austen. V. Gollancz, 1938.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Jane Austen. Minerva Press, 1969.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Joseph Lister. Nelson, 1960.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Lady Caroline Lamb. V. Gollancz, 1932.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Six Criminal Women. Sampson Low, 1949.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Ten Fascinating Women. Coward-McCann Inc., 1968.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Tennyson and Dr. Gully. Tennyson Society, Tennyson Research Centre, 1974.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Mystery of King Arthur. Joseph, 1975.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Shadow and the Light: A Defence of Daniel Douglas Home, the Medium. H. Hamilton, 1982.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Tortoise and the Hare. V. Gollancz, 1954.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson, 2004.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Winters. V. Gollancz, 1931.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Virginia Water. V. Gollancz, 1929.