Margaret Drabble Books

The classic bigraphy of Queen Victoria, reissued in advance of the centenary of her death. Lady Longford regards her with undisguised affection and respect - respect for the iron sense of duty which impelled the secluded widow to emerge at last and rule her empire as a mother, her family as a Queen.

The colorful, controversial life story of Angus Wilson--one of the most brilliant writers to emerge after World War II--is captured by acclaimed novelist Margaret Drabble. A master chronicler of the foibles of English life, Wilson emerges as an artist of enormous courage, one of the very few who, even in the 1940s, lived as an open homosexual.

The Sixth Edition of this renowned literary reference book has been thoroughly updated and expanded by editor Margaret Drabble and a team of 140 distinguished contributors, including notable authors like Salman Rushdie and Penelope Fitzgerald. This edition features over 660 new entries, with more than a third authored by Drabble herself, encompassing hundreds of new biographies from Kathy Acker to Stefan Zweig, along with fresh entries on genres, literary terms, and critical schools. In total, it offers over 7,000 alphabetically arranged entries, providing extensive coverage of classical English literature and influential European works. The articles encompass authors, fictional characters, plot summaries, composers, artists, literary movements, historians, philosophers, critics, as well as aspects of publishing history, literary societies, and critical theory. Additionally, it includes sixteen new feature essays on topics ranging from gay and lesbian literature to modernism and science fiction, along with a comprehensive chronology that contextualizes key literary works over a thousand years. Complete lists of poet laureates and literary prize winners further enhance its value. With its engaging style, this edition serves as an essential resource for students, teachers, and anyone passionate about English literature.

Based on the bestselling Oxford Companion to English Literature, this is an indispensable, compact guide to all aspects of English literature. For this revised edition, existing entries have been fully updated and 60 new entries have been added on contemporary writers, such as Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Toni Morrison, and Jeanette Winterson. New appendices include a chronology of English literature, and a listing of major literary prize-winners.

The middle years of Kate Armstrong are caught between parents and children and are free of neither. Relentlessly good-natured, surprisingly successful, lapped by the affection of her children and friends and intidily folded into the clutter of her overflowing house, Kate is now suddenly in her forties. Margaret Drable takes Kate's predicament - when Kate is forced to make a reconnaissance of the middle ground of her life - and turns it into a wise, witty and ebullient novel.

Perec was a leading exponent of French literary surrealism who found humour - and pathos - in the human need for classification. Thoughts of Sorts is itself unclassifiable, a unique collection of philosophical riffs on his obsession with lists, puzzles, catalogues, and taxonomies. Introduced by Margaret Drabble.

Collects three lesser-known works by one of the nineteenth century's greatest authors: Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon. This book examines the works in the context of her major novels and her life, and discusses the social background of her fiction.

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, an intimate novel about human desire against the backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the Sixties

Story about the difficulties of marriage and family life in an unglamorous North London environment.

Poet Jane Gray, whose husband has left her shortly before the birth of their second child, falls passionately in love with James, the husband of Lucy - Jane's cousin and her friend. Their adulterous affair remains secret until a tragic accident exposes it to the world and they have to face the consequences! The Waterfall is a powerful novel about sexual awakening and obsession - and the violent conflicts of maternal and sexual love.