Elizabeth Taylor (writer)

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Elizabeth Taylor , maiden name Dorothy Berry Cole (born July 3, 1912 in Reading , Berkshire , † November 19, 1975 in Penn , Buckinghamshire ), was a British writer.

Taylor's 1971 novel Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is featured in the 2015 list of the Top 100 English-Language Novels Robert McCrum compiled for the Guardian .

life and work

Elizabeth Taylor attended Reading Abbey School, where she also took Greek lessons and was awarded the School Prize for English every year.

Until her marriage to the factory owner John Taylor in 1936, she worked as a private teacher, kindergarten teacher and librarian . The marriage resulted in two daughters. She led an inconspicuous and withdrawn life with her family, wrote her novels and short stories in addition to her daily work and rarely left the city of Reading.

She always had positive memories of the time of her career. She wrote: “ I learned so much from these jobs and have never regretted the time I spent at them ” (German: “I learned so much through these jobs and have never regretted the time I spent doing it”). She was a member of the local Communist Party branch in High Wycombe . In 1938 she met the painter and designer Raymond Russell there, with whom she began an affair and with whom she had an intensive correspondence over the next ten years. Little has survived of the correspondence, as she burned all of Russell's letters after their relationship ended. Since 1948 she maintained a pen friendship with Robert Liddell , who destroyed her letters after her death with a few exceptions.

As a novelist and author of numerous short stories, she devoted herself primarily to the lives of women of the middle and upper middle class , to which she belonged. She described this milieu and the women who work in it precisely and with humor. At the center of the plot of her prose are not exciting events, but rather everyday situations. Coincidences in life, unexpected events, occasional deaths serve as a means of bringing to light confusion, disorder beneath the surface of the daily life of the actors.

The first of her twelve novels, entitled At Mrs Lippincote’s , was published in 1945. Her novel Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1971 . Her short stories, which had previously appeared in various magazines, have been published in several edited volumes. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, the first complete edition of her short stories was published in 2012.

reception

During her lifetime, Taylor's work was largely ignored by the public and by literary criticism. With the name Elizabeth Taylor she stood in the shadow of the actress of the same name throughout her life . All of her biographers and subsequent critics point out that a few months before she published her first novel, National Velvet, starring Elizabeth Taylor, had come out and the dawn of a shining star in Hollywood's cinematic sky drew all the media and audience attention. When Dan Ireland made the film Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont with Joan Plowright in the title role based on Taylor's novel in 2005 and François Ozon made her novel Angel in 2007 , it was hardly read in Great Britain.

However, her work was well known among writers and highly valued by her colleagues. Kingsley Amis called her "one of the best English novelists of this century", Antonia Fraser called her "one of the most underrated authors of the 20th century". “Well-versed, cultured and slightly underrated,” says Hilary Mantel , and Jilly Cooper praises her as “a wonderful storyteller”.

It was only on the occasion of her 100th birthday in 2012, when Virago in London and New York Review Books in the United States tackled a new edition of her works, that she was really noticed and made public by English literary criticism and the feature pages.

Works

Novels

  • At Mrs Lippincote's (1945)
  • Palladian (1946)
    Lonely Heart . Translated from the English by Heinz Kotthaus . Albert Limbach, Braunschweig 1948.
  • A View of the Harbor (1947)
    Small waves . From the English by Carmen Hübener. Claassen, Hamburg 1950.
    View of the harbor . Translated from the English by Bettina Abarbanell . Dörlemann, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-908777-66-3 .
  • A Wreath of Roses (1949)
  • A Game of Hide and Seek (1951)
    hide and seek . Translated from the English by Bettina Abarbanell. Dörlemann, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-908777-84-7 .
  • The Sleeping Beauty (1953)
  • Angel (1957)
    Angel . Translated from the English by Bettina Abarbanell. Dörlemann, Zurich 2018, ISBN 978-3-03820-052-9 .
  • In a Summer Season (1961) For
    one summer . Translated from the English by Hansjürgen Wille and Barbara Klau. Schröder, Hamburg 1962.
  • The Soul of Kindness (1964)
  • The Wedding Group (1968)
  • Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1971)
  • Blaming (1976)

Short stories (selection)

  • Hester Lilly (1954)
  • The Blush and Other Stories (1958)
  • A Dedicated Man and Other Stories (1965)
  • The Devastating Boys (1972)
  • Complete short stories . Introduction by Joanna Langham. Virago Modern Classics 2012. ISBN 978-1-84408-840-9

Children's books

  • Mossy Trotter (1967)

Film adaptations

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Abbeye School, Reading, accessed June 21, 2019
  2. ^ A b c d Namara Smith: How the Other Elizabeth Taylor Reconciled Family Life and Art . In: The New Yorker , June 16, 2015
  3. ↑ James Naiden: From England, A Belated Gift: Elizabeth Taylor's Fiction . raintaxi.com; accessed on June 20, 2019
  4. ↑ Elizabeth Taylor, Hide and Seek . steamthing.com; accessed on June 20, 2019
  5. ^ Adam Z. Levy: The Great Elizabeth Taylor . In: Quarterly Conversation , Issue 37; accessed on June 20, 2019
  6. ↑ a b goodreads.com
  7. ^ The Booker Prizes
  8. ^ Charlotte Mendelsohn The Other Elizabeth Taylor's Complete Short Stories . In: The Guardian , July 6, 2012; accessed on June 20, 2019
  9. ↑ Elizabeth Taylor, novelist . In: The Guardian , May 11, 2012; accessed on June 21, 2019
  10. ↑ Angela Schader: Suspended feelings . In: NZZ , April 9, 2013; Review.
personal data
SURNAME Taylor, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Reading
DATE OF DEATH 19th November 1975
Place of death Penn , Buckinghamshire