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
Literary responses Mollie Panter-Downes
MPD 's contemporary the future novelist Elizabeth Jenkins later remembered devouring the successive instalments of this book in the Daily Mirror.
Beauman, Nicola, and Mollie Panter-Downes. “Introduction”. One Fine Day, Virago, 1985, p. vii - xvi.
ix
Reviewers were impressed: the Times was surprised at such maturity of style...
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, 2004.
59
She wrote that TB had enjoyed a succès d'estime with her early works in the pensive, débutante style. After that she...
Literary responses Stella Gibbons
The publisher had no shortage of praise to quote in advertising material. Elizabeth Goudge called the book the most exciting story and generally agreed with Elizabeth Jenkins 's point that it achieved a truly remarkable...
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...
Literary responses Margaret Kennedy
The biography, which reads like a handbook, was not reviewed positively by the Times Literary Supplement.
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann, 1983.
182
The review described it as well-written lecture notes and suggested that it might be thought superfluous.
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann, 1983.
179
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...
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...
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, 2004.
59
After the war she was commissioned by...
Reception Charlotte Yonge
E. M. Delafield writes that during the 1940s CY retained wide popularity: that the London Library 's copies of her books were often checked out by readers, and that when Delafield wrote to the Times...
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...
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 Features Ngaio Marsh
She named her detective-hero Roderick Alleyn after the Elizabethan actor and theatre entrepreneur Edward Alleyn (who founded the school where her father had been educated, and a biography of whom by Elizabeth Jenkins was published...
Textual Production Marghanita Laski
Other contributors to the volume included Lettice Cooper , Elizabeth Jenkins , Margaret Kennedy , and Katharine Briggs .
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...
Textual Production Naomi Royde-Smith
NRS dedicated her work to Florence Mary Parsons (calling her, with formal correctness, Mrs. Clement Parsons), author of the twenty-five-year-old definitive biography of Siddons. People she acknowledges include her husband (for advice about old...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Mystery of King Arthur. Joseph, 1975.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Princes in the Tower. H. Hamilton, 1978.
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 Tortoise and the Hare. Virago, 1983.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson, 2004.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The Winters. V. Gollancz, 1931.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. Virginia Water. V. Gollancz, 1929.