Biography
Novelist, biographer and critic Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield on 5 June 1939. She was educated at the Mount School, a Quaker boarding school in York, and read English at Newnham College, Cambridge. She became an actress and worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon before her first novel, A Summer Birdcage, the story of the relationship between two sisters, was published in 1963.
Her other novels include The Garrick Year (1964), set in the theatre world; The Millstone (1965), winner of the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, in which a young academic becomes pregnant after a casual relationship; Jerusalem the Golden (1967), winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), about a young woman from the north of England at university in London; The Waterfall (1969), a formally experimental narrative; The Needle's Eye (1972), winner of the Yorkshire Post Book Award (Finest Fiction), the story of a young heiress who gives away her inheritance; and The Realms of Gold (1975), about a prominent archaeologist juggling the different aspects of her life. The Ice Age (1977) examines the social and economic plight of England in the mid-1970s while in The Middle Ground (1980) a journalist is forced to take-stock of her life.
The Radiant Way (1987), A Natural Curiosity (1989) and The Gates of Ivory (1991) form a trilogy of novels describing the experiences of three friends living through the 1980s. The Witch of Exmoor (1996) is a portrait of contemporary Britain. The Peppered Moth (2001) explores four generations in one family beginning with Bessie Bawtry's childhood spent growing up in a South Yorkshire mining town at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Candida Wilton, the central character in her novel The Seven Sisters (2002), begins a new life in London after the breakdown of her marriage. A surprise windfall gives her the opportunity to travel to Italy with friends and explore new experiences. Her most recent novel is The Sea Lady (2006). Margaret Drabble is also the author of biographies of Arnold Bennett (1974) and Angus Wilson (1995), and is editor of both the fifth (1985) and sixth (2000) editions of The Oxford Companion to English Literature.
She is a former Chairman of the National Book League (1980-82), and was awarded the CBE in 1980. She received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1973, and holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Sheffield (1976), Manchester (1987), Keele (1988), Bradford (1988), Hull (1992), East Anglia (1994) and York (1995).
Margaret Drabble is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London and Somerset. Her sister is the novelist and critic A. S. Byatt. In 2008 she was made a DBE.
Bibliography
A Summer Birdcage Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963
The Garrick Year Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964
The Millstone Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965
Wordsworth (Literature in Perspective Series) Evans Brothers, 1966
Jerusalem the Golden Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967
The Waterfall Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969
The Needle's Eye Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972
Arnold Bennett: A Biography Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974
The Realms of Gold Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975
New Stories 1: An Anthology (co-editor with Charles Osborne) Arts Council of Great Britain, 1976
The Genius of Thomas Hardy (editor) Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976
The Ice Age Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977
For Queen and Country: Britain in the Victorian Age André Deutsch, 1978
A Writer's Britain: Landscape in Literature Thames & Hudson, 1979
The Middle Ground Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980
The Oxford Companion to English Literature (editor, fifth edition) Oxford University Press, 1985
The Radiant Way Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987
A Natural Curiosity Viking, 1989
The Gates of Ivory Viking, 1991
Angus Wilson: A Biography Secker & Warburg, 1995
The Witch of Exmoor Viking, 1996
The Oxford Companion to English Literature (editor, sixth edition) Oxford University Press, 2000
The Peppered Moth Viking, 2001
The Seven Sisters Viking, 2002
The Red Queen Viking, 2004
The Sea Lady Penguin, 2006
Prizes and awards
1966 Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize The Millstone
1967 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) Jerusalem the Golden
1972 Yorkshire Post Book Award (Finest Fiction) The Needle's Eye
1973 E. M. Forster Award (American Academy of Arts and Letters)
1980 CBE
2008 DBE
