Brigid Brophy

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Standard Name: Brophy, Brigid
Birth Name: Brigid Antonia Susan Brophy
Married Name: Brigid Antonia Susan Levey
Titled: Brigid Antonia Susan, Lady Levey
In the novel BB 's topics are social and sexual comedy. In non-fiction (essays, criticism, polemic) she pursued her interests in causes (often for the benefit of animals or writers), in opera and other arts, in deviant or nonconformist behaviour, and in individuals with a particular appeal to her. Late in her career, which spanned the second half of the twentieth century, came moving and clear-sighted writing on her multiple sclerosis. BB disliked and opposed the study of women's writing in isolation from that of men.
Black and white photograph of Brigid Brophy wearing a zebra print sleeveless blouse over a black turtle neck. In the background, there are several bookcases visible. She is facing the camera.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Dodie Smith
Most reviewers, however, found this book childish.
qtd. in
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
272
One especially nasty review by Richard Lister (T. C. Worsley ) in the Evening Standard expressed incredulity that such a book could even be written after...
Literary responses Ivy Compton-Burnett
Brigid Brophy , reviewing this novel for the New Statesman, wrote not entirely appreciatively that the devices of the plot-making seem borrowed from the Edwardian theatre, that a positively farcical pile-up of skeletons come...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Novelist Brigid Brophy , who also likened PH to Dostoevsky ,
Dirda, Michael. “This Woman Is Dangerous”. The Guardian, 20 June 2009, p. between pp. 12 and 13.
between 12 and 13
also wrote in November 1965 that among crime writers only PH and Georges Simenon had transcended the limits of crime...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
MD organised a Prop Art (propaganda art) Exhibition in London, together with Brigid Brophy .
Duffy, Maureen. The Microcosm. Virago, 1989.
prelims
Occupation Maureen Duffy
MD has undertaken a number of positions in public life, working tirelessly to improve the lot of authors—and of laboratory animals. Along with Brigid Brophy and 148 others, she was a signatory of The Rights...
Occupation Maureen Duffy
This organization, which MD set up together with her colleague Brigid Brophy , had as its aim to fight for loans-based, flat rate, government-funded Public Lending Right, to be paid to authors, not publishers:
Platt, Edward. “25 Years fighting for writers’ rights”. ALCS News, No. 21, July 2002, pp. 4-5.
4-5
Occupation Maureen Duffy
Before the general election of May 1979, MD and Brigid Brophy offered a job at ALCS to Elizabeth Thomas (advisor to Michael Foot ) in case Labour should lose.
Thomas, Elizabeth, journalist. “25th Anniversary: Elizabeth Thomas remembers Maureen and Brigid”. ALCS News, No. 21, July 2002, p. 6.
6
Occupation Rebecca West
The prize went to P. H. Newby 's Something to Answer For, which according to Kermode years later was a compromise decision. Dame Rebecca didn't dislike it as much as nearly all the others...
politics Lettice Cooper
She also participated in the campaign for authors' public lending right, having been a founder-member with Brigid Brophy , Maureen Duffy , and others, of Writers' Action Group .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Publishing Shena Mackay
Before Babies in Rhinestones appeared, SM completed a novel entitled A Bowl of Cherries, which reuses some parts of her unpublished The Firefly Motel. She submitted this, her first novel for over a...
Publishing Sydney Owenson Lady Morgan
The novel quickly went through seven editions. French and German translations were titled from the heroine Glorvina or Glorwina
Wordsworth, Jonathan. The Bright Work Grows: Women Writers of the Romantic Age. Woodstock Books, 1997.
159
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press, 2000, 2 vols.
2: 237
In 1846 it appeared in Colburn's Standard Novels, a series designed for...
Reception Iris Murdoch
This book was runner-up (to Brigid Brophy 's) for the Cheltenham Literary Festival's prize for a first novel.
Conradi, Peter J. Iris Murdoch. A Life. HarperCollins, 2002.
486
It and her second caused IM to be grouped with the so-called socially anarchic school
British Book News. British Council.
(1957): 451
Textual Features Elizabeth Taylor
One quality in ET 's work worth singling out is her penchant for creating thoroughly dislikable characters whom she nevertheless persuades the reader to view with sympathy. As Brigid Brophy puts it, she explores the...
Textual Features Iris Murdoch
The title comes from William Hogarth 's series of didactic engravings about the two apprentices, of whom the industrious one rises to be Lord Mayor while the idle one takes to crime and is hanged....
Textual Features Angela Brazil
Her protagonist Lesbia Ferrars, with her large dreamy eyes
qtd. in
Freeman, Gillian. The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Allen Lane, 1976.
81
and Irish/Highland blood (she is Celtic to the core),
qtd. in
Freeman, Gillian. The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Allen Lane, 1976.
81
is a self-portrait, but Lesbia's experiences as a governess after leaving school are those...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Brophy, Brigid. The Snow Ball. Secker and Warburg, 1964.
Brophy, Brigid. “The Waste-Disposal Unit”. London Magazine, London Magazine.