Penelope Fitzgerald facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Penelope Fitzgerald
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| Born | Penelope Mary Knox 17 December 1916 Lincoln, England |
| Died | 28 April 2000 (aged 83) London, England |
| Occupation | Writer |
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| Spouse |
Desmond Fitzgerald
(m. 1941; died 1976) |
| Parents | E. V. Knox (father) Mary Shepard (step-mother) |
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Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (born December 17, 1916 – died April 28, 2000) was a well-known English writer. She wrote novels, poems, essays, and biographies. Penelope Fitzgerald won the important Booker Prize for her writing.
In 2008, The Times newspaper said she was one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945." Her last novel, The Blue Flower, was called one of the "ten best historical novels" by The Observer in 2012. Another famous writer, A.S. Byatt, compared her writing to that of Jane Austen.
Contents
About Penelope Fitzgerald's Life
Penelope Mary Knox was born on December 17, 1916, in Lincoln, England. Her father, E. V. Knox, later became the editor of Punch magazine. Her mother, Christina, was one of the first women to study at Oxford University.
Penelope came from a very clever family. Her uncles included Ronald Knox, who wrote about religion and crime, Dillwyn Knox, a code-breaker, and Wilfred Knox, a Bible scholar. Her aunt, Winifred Peck, was also a novelist. Penelope once said that she thought her father and uncles were normal, and it surprised her to learn that not everyone was like them.
Her Education and Early Career
Penelope went to Wycombe Abbey, a private boarding school for girls. Then she studied at Somerville College at Oxford University. She graduated in 1938 with top honors. She was even named a "Woman of the Year" by the student newspaper, Isis.
During the Second World War, she worked for the BBC. In 1942, she married Desmond Fitzgerald. They had met at Oxford in 1940. Desmond was a soldier in the Irish Guards and won the Military Cross for his bravery in North Africa.
Life Challenges and Teaching
In the early 1950s, Penelope and Desmond lived in London. They worked together on a magazine called World Review. This magazine published stories by famous writers like J. D. Salinger. Penelope also wrote about books, music, and art for the magazine.
Later, Desmond faced serious financial problems, which meant he could no longer work as a lawyer. This led to a difficult time for the Fitzgerald family, and they sometimes struggled with money. For a few months, they even lived in a homeless shelter. For eleven years, they lived in public housing.
To support her family in the 1960s, Penelope became a teacher. She taught at a drama school called Italia Conti Academy. She also taught at Queen's Gate School, where one of her students was Camilla Shand, who later became Queen Camilla. Penelope also taught at a special school that helped students prepare for exams. Her students there included Anna Wintour and Helena Bonham Carter. She continued teaching until she was 70 years old.
Penelope also worked in a bookshop for a while. At one point, she lived on a houseboat in Battersea, London. Sadly, the houseboat sank twice! The second time, it sank for good, and she lost many of her books and family papers.
Penelope and Desmond had three children: a son named Valpy, and two daughters named Tina and Maria. Penelope Fitzgerald passed away on April 28, 2000.
Penelope Fitzgerald's Writing Career
Penelope Fitzgerald started her writing career quite late in life, at the age of 58, in 1975. She began by writing interesting biographies. Her first was about the artist Edward Burne-Jones. Two years later, she wrote The Knox Brothers, which was about her father and uncles.
In 1977, she published her first novel, The Golden Child. It was a funny murder mystery set in a museum. She wrote it to entertain her husband, who was very ill at the time. He passed away in 1976.
Over the next five years, she wrote four more novels. Each of these books was inspired by her own life experiences.
- The Bookshop (1978) was about a small, struggling bookshop in a town in England. This book was nominated for the Booker Prize. A film based on this book, also called The Bookshop, was made in 2017.
- Offshore (1979) won the Booker Prize. It tells the story of people living on houseboats in Battersea in 1961, much like Penelope herself did.
- Human Voices (1980) is a fictional story about what life was like at the BBC during wartime.
- At Freddie's (1982) describes life at a drama school, similar to where Penelope taught.
In 1999, Penelope Fitzgerald received the Golden PEN Award. This award is given for a lifetime of great contributions to literature.
Her Historical Novels
After writing At Freddie's, Penelope said she had finished writing about her own life. So, she started writing a series of novels set in different historical periods.
- Innocence (1986) is a romance story set in Florence, Italy, in the 1950s.
- The Beginning of Spring (1988) takes place in Moscow in 1913, just before the Russian Revolution. It looks at the world through the eyes of a British businessman living in Russia.
- The Gate of Angels (1990) is set in 1912. It's about a young physicist at Cambridge University who falls in love with a nursing student after a bicycle accident.
Penelope Fitzgerald's last novel was The Blue Flower (1995). This book is about an 18th-century German poet and philosopher named Novalis and his love for a young girl. Other historical figures like the poet Goethe also appear in the story. This novel won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1997 and is often called her best work. It was even made into a radio play for BBC Radio in 1999.
After she passed away, a collection of her short stories called The Means of Escape was published. Also, a book of her essays and reviews, A House of Air, was released. In 2013, the first full biography of Penelope Fitzgerald, called Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, was written by Hermione Lee.
Her Legacy
Penelope Fitzgerald's important writings and papers are kept in special places. The British Library acquired her archive in 2017. This collection includes many letters and papers related to her books, as well as items from her family. Many of her other literary papers, like her research notes, drafts of her books, letters, and photographs, are held at the Harry Ransom Center.
See also
In Spanish: Penelope Fitzgerald para niños
