Lorna Sage (13 January 1943 – 11 January 2001) was an English academic, literary critic and author, remembered especially for contributing to consideration of women's writing and for a memoir of her early life, '' Bad Blood'' (2000).ODNB entry by Maureen Duffy
"Sage , Lorna (1943–2001)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Retrieved 22 January 2013. Pay-walled. She taught English literature at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

Biography

Sage was born in Hanmer, a village on the Anglo-Welsh border, as the eldest child of Valma (''née'' Meredith-Morris) and Eric Stockton, a haulage contractor, then serving as a second lieutenant in the

Royal Welch Fusiliers The Royal Welch Fusiliers ( cy, Ffiwsilwyr Brenhinol Cymreig) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, and part of the Prince of Wales' Division, that was founded in 1689; shortly after the Glorious Revolution. In 1702, it was designate ...

. She was named after the title character of

R. D. Blackmore Richard Doddridge Blackmore (7 June 1825 – 20 January 1900), known as R. D. Blackmore, was one of the most famous English novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. He won acclaim for vivid descriptions and personification of the ...

's novel ''

Lorna Doone ''Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor'' is a novel by English author Richard Doddridge Blackmore, published in 1869. It is a romance based on a group of historical characters and set in the late 17th century in Devon and Somerset, particularly ar ...

''. As her father was away serving in the war, she was initially raised in her grandparents' home in

Flintshire , settlement_type = County , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_shield = Arms of Flint ...

, North Wales, where her grandfather was at once an Anglican clergyman and a ladies' man and drinker disliked by his wife. She attended a nearby Flintshire village school, then the Girls' High School in

Whitchurch, Shropshire Whitchurch is a market town in the north of Shropshire, England. It lies east of the Welsh border, 2 miles south of the Cheshire border, north of the county town of Shrewsbury, south of Chester, and east of Wrexham. At the 2011 Census, the ...

. Lorna Stockton became

pregnant Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...

by Victor Sage and they married in 1959 when she was 16. Their daughter Sharon was born in 1960, after which the couple managed to continue their education. Lorna Sage won a scholarship to read English at

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills ( Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_cha ...

, after the university's St Aidan's College changed its admission rules to admit married students. They both graduated in 1964 with first class honours, an event reported on the front page of the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

'' at the time. Although the couple divorced in 1974, they remained friends. Sage later received an MA from the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

for her thesis entitled "Poems on Poetry in the 17th Century".

Academic life

Sage's spent her entire academic career at the

, where she became Professor of English Literature in 1994. She was twice Dean of the School of English and American Studies (in 1985–1988 and 1993–1996). She edited ''

The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English ''The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English'' is a biographical dictionary of women writers and women's writing in English published by Cambridge University Press in 1999 (). It was edited by Lorna Sage, with Germaine Greer and Elaine Sh ...

'' in 1999, which has become a standard work. As she wrote in the Preface: "In concentrating on women's writing... you stress the extent and pace of change, for the scale of women's access to literary life has reflected and accelerated democratic, diasporic pressures in the modern world." Sage's book reviews appeared in the ''

London Review of Books The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews. History The ''London Review o ...

'', ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' and ''

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 ...

'', mentioning the works of

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

and covering studies of works of authors who included

Christina Stead Christina Stead (17 July 190231 March 1983) was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations. Christina Stead was a committed Marxist, although she was never a me ...

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

Thomas Love Peacock Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 – 23 January 1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. Peacock wrote satirical novels, ...

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

and

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wor ...

. Sage married Rupert Hodson in 1979 after meeting him in Florence on a sabbatical. The couple rented a house near Florence from Harry Brewster, where Sage wrote outside academic terms.

Autobiography

Sage's childhood is recounted in her memoir '' Bad Blood'' (2000), which traces her disappointment in a family where warped behaviour passed down from generation to generation. The book won the Whitbread Biography Award on 3 January 2001. A week later Sage died in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

as a result of

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the alv ...

, from which she had suffered for some years. She left behind the draft of the first part of a work on

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

and

Platonism Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at l ...

in literature, which, according to her former husband in 2001, she had been working on intermittently for many years. The posthumous collection ''Moments of Truth'' partly consists of reprinted introductions to classic works.

Publications

*''Peacock: The Satirical Novels'' (1976) *''Doris Lessing'' (1983) *''Last Edwardians: An Illustrated History of Violet Trefusis & Alice Keppel'' (1985) *''Angela Carter'' (1990) *''Women in the House of Fiction'' (1992) *''Flesh and the Mirror; Essays on the Art of Angela Carter'' (1994) *''The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English'' (1999) *'' Bad Blood'' (2000) *''Moments of Truth: Twelve Twentieth Century Women Writers'' (2001): a collection of literary essays *''Good as her word: Selected Journalism'' (2004)

References

External links

Bio at West Midlands Literary HeritageList of Lorna Sage articles
''London Review of Books'' archive *Lorna Sage

''The Guardian'', 12 January 2001 (her last article)
"Tributes to 'brilliant' Sage"
BBC News, 12 January 2001
Lorna Sage Archive
University of East Anglia
Lorna Sage: Bad Blood An Exhibition
Sharon Tolaini-Sage (curator) with University of East Anglia {{DEFAULTSORT:Sage, Lorna 1943 births 2001 deaths Academics of the University of East Anglia Alumni of the University of Birmingham British biographers British journalists 20th-century biographers 20th-century British women writers British women memoirists People from Whitchurch, Shropshire People from Flintshire Deaths from emphysema 20th-century British journalists Alumni of St Aidan's College, Durham