Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a
Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a Literary award, literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United King ...
-winning novelist, poet, essayist and
biographer
Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography.
Biographers
Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...
from
Lincoln, England
Lincoln () is a cathedral city, a non-metropolitan district, and the county town of Lincolnshire, England. In the 2021 Census, the Lincoln district had a population of 103,813. The 2011 census gave the Lincoln Urban Area, urban area of Lincoln, ...
.
In 2008 ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' in 2012 placed her final novel, ''
The Blue Flower'', among "the ten best
historical novel
Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...
s".
A.S. Byatt
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy ( Drabble; born 24 August 1936), known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt ( ), is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely translated, into more than t ...
called her, "Jane Austen’s nearest heir for precision and invention."
Biography
Penelope Fitzgerald was born Penelope Mary Knox on 17 December 1916 at the Old Bishop's Palace, Lincoln, the daughter of
Edmund Knox, later editor of ''
Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
'', and Christina, ''née'' Hicks, daughter of
Edward Hicks, Bishop of Lincoln, and one of the first women students at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. She was a niece of the theologian and crime writer
Ronald Knox
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an Catholic Church in England and Wales, English Catholic priest, Catholic theology, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton College, Eton and Balliol Colleg ...
, the cryptographer
Dillwyn Knox, the Bible scholar
Wilfred Knox
Wilfred Lawrence Knox (1886–1950) was an English Anglicanism, Anglican priest and theologian, one of four brothers who distinguished themselves. After leaving University of Oxford, Oxford with a first-class honours degree in classics, Knox soon ...
, and the novelist and biographer
Winifred Peck
Winifred Peck, née Knox, (1882–1962) was an English novelist and biographer.
Biography
Winifred Frances Knox was born in Headington, England in 1882. Her father was Edmund Arbuthnott Knox, the fourth Bishop of Manchester. Knox was one of ...
. Fitzgerald later wrote: "When I was young I took my father and my three uncles for granted, and it never occurred to me that everyone else wasn't like them. Later on, I found that this was a mistake, but I've never quite managed to adapt myself to it. I suppose they were unusual, but I still think that they were right, and insofar as the world disagrees with them, I disagree with the world."
She was educated at
Wycombe Abbey
Wycombe Abbey is an independent girls' boarding and day school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls schools in academic results.
The school was founded in 1896 by Dame Frances Dove (1847 ...
, an independent girls' boarding school, and
Somerville College
Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...
,
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, where she graduated in 1938 with a congratulatory First, being named a "Woman of the Year" in ''
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
'', the student newspaper.
[ She worked for the ]BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. In 1942 she married Desmond Fitzgerald, whom she had met in 1940 at Oxford. He had been studying for the bar and enlisted as a soldier in the
. Six months later, Desmond's regiment was sent to
. He won the
.