Jerusalem the Golden is a novel by Margaret Drabble published in 1967, and is a winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1967. [1]
Jerusalem the Golden resembles a number of autobiographical elements: like Clara, Drabble grew up in Yorkshire, was the middle of three sisters, and some of the characters resemble family members. [2] Mrs Maugham is "based on [Drabble's] maternal grandmother." [2]
The title is taken from the hymn of the same name; frequently Drabble uses titles that point towards Biblical references: such as in The Millstone and The Needle's Eye . [2]
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Like many of Drabble's other novels, the novel focuses on topics relevant to women and gender. For example, G. Suchita describes the novel as exhibiting "liberationist tendencies" familiar with the feminist trends of 1960's. [3] Suchita compares the female protagonist, Clara, to other women characters Emma from The Garrick Year and Louise from A Summer Bird-Cage , both which use "sex as a social advancement", creating power over men through sexual conquest. [3] However, as critic Lisa Allardice noted she isn't writing "feminist" novels, but "merely writing about the world around her, and her own experiences as a young woman during the period". [2]
Similarly, in reviewing the novel for The Guardian, critic Lisa Allardice noted the importance of intense female relationships, in a format similar to other novels by Drabble, including her earlier novels: debut novel A Summer Bird-Cage and The Waterfall . [2]
Drabble writes the novel into the larger literary tradition, by evoking motifs and features from numerous other works. The title is a biblical reference, and she "frequently evokes" Thomas Hardy, making explicit references to Tess of the D'Urbervilles . [2] When reviewing the book, critic Lisa Allardice also notes the close resemblance of the novel's structure and plot to the later An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel. [2]
In rereading the novel at the time of its republication with Penguin Modern Classics, critic Lisa Allardice described the novel as " very much a fairytale of its time". [2] Allardice described the novel as successful, and exhibiting the "moral ambiguity and wisdom of Drabble's early fiction, along with the wit and elegance of her prose." She concluded by claiming that it should be as well read as its predecessor, The Millstone . [2]
Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction focused on theories that include feminist themes including but not limited to gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, reproduction, and environment. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
Enoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays, and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information in the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. The sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.
The English novel is an important part of English literature. This article mainly concerns novels, written in English, by novelists who were born or have spent a significant part of their lives in England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. However, given the nature of the subject, this guideline has been applied with common sense, and reference is made to novels in other languages or novelists who are not primarily British, where appropriate.
Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is a fictional character and the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the 1939 film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Leigh. She also is the main character in the 1970 musical Scarlett and the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994. During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy", and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print.
Lucky Jim is a novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1954 by Victor Gollancz. It was Amis's first novel and won the 1955 Somerset Maugham Award for fiction. The novel follows the exploits of the eponymous James (Jim) Dixon, a reluctant lecturer at an unnamed provincial English university.
Joanna Trollope is an English writer. She has also written under the pseudonym of Caroline Harvey. Her novel Parson Harding's Daughter won in 1980 the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham, originally published in 1908. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the pen name Oliver Haddo, in which he accused Maugham of plagiarism.
Isobel Violet Hunt was a British author and literary hostess. She wrote feminist novels. She founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League in 1908 and participated in the founding of International PEN.
"The Juniper Tree" is a German fairy tale published in Low German by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. The story contains themes of child abuse, murder, cannibalism and biblical symbolism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales.
The Millstone is a novel by Margaret Drabble, first published in 1965. It is about an unmarried, young academic who becomes pregnant after a one-night stand and, against all odds, decides to give birth to her child and raise it herself.
Don't Look Behind You is a 1989 young adult thriller novel by Lois Duncan. It won a number of regional awards and was adapted into a television film in 1999.
Hampstead novel is a term used – often in a derogatory sense – to describe a particular genre of English fiction. Journalist and literary critic Kate Kellaway has described it as "a middle-class morality novel – probably involving adultery and shallow-masquerading-as-deep." Author and journalist Bill Buford calls it "middle class monologue". A novel in this genre takes place in the affluent Hampstead area of London, or in a similar neighbourhood. One novelist who is particularly often associated with the Hampstead novel is Margaret Drabble. Other authors considered proponents of the style include Margaret Forster, Fay Weldon, Penelope Lively, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Melvyn Bragg and Zoë Heller.
A Summer Bird-Cage is the 1963 debut novel by Margaret Drabble published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The title of the novel is taken from a quotation from the play The White Devil by John Webster:
The Peppered Moth is a 2000 novel by English writer Margaret Drabble; it is her fourteenth published novel. The novel follows the fictional experiences of three generations of women within one family, and contains several elements that are loosely based on Drabble's own biographical experience.
Bernardine Anna Livia Mary Bishop was an English novelist, teacher and psychotherapist. Her first novel, Perspectives, was published by Hutchinson in 1961. During a half-century break between publishing her first two novels and her third, the 2013 Costa prize-nominated Unexpected Lessons In Love, she brought up a family, taught, and practised as a psychotherapist.
The Witch of Exmoor is a 1996 novel by Margaret Drabble. The novel is a social novel, with a focus on exploring the state of post-Thatcher Britain through the Dickensian satire of the Palmer family. The title describes the satirical protagonist, Frieda Palmer, who provides the source of much of the social commentary.
The Seven Sisters is a 1992 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel reflects on a mid-life crisis of an estranged Candida, when she moves to a rundown London apartment. The novel largely follows Candida's evasive and sometimes deceptive representation of events, including an epistolary section which is her "computer diary".
The Country Life is a comedic novel by Rachel Cusk, first published in 1997, which draws on Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. It won a 1998 Somerset Maugham Award.
The Dark Flood Rises is the 19th novel of Margaret Drabble, and was first published in 2016.