Margaret Kennedy | |
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Born | London, England | 23 April 1896
Died | 31 July 1967 71) Adderbury, England | (aged
Occupation |
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Alma mater | Somerville College, Oxford |
Notable works | The Constant Nymph |
Spouse | David Davies (m. 1925;died 1964) |
Children | 3 |
Relatives |
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Margaret Kennedy (23 April 1896 – 31 July 1967) was an English novelist and playwright. Her most successful work, as a novel and as a play, was The Constant Nymph . She was a productive writer and several of her works were filmed. Three of her novels were reprinted in 2011.
Margaret Kennedy was born in Hyde Park Gate, London, the eldest of the four children of Charles Moore Kennedy, a barrister, and his wife Ellinor Edith Marwood. The novelist Joyce Cary was a cousin on her father's side. [1]
She attended Cheltenham Ladies' College, where she began writing, and then went up to Somerville College, Oxford, in 1915 to read History. [1] Other literary contemporaries at Somerville College included Winifred Holtby, Vera Brittain, Hilda Reid, Naomi Mitchison and Sylvia Thompson. She also became close friends with the Welsh author Flora Forster. Her first publication was a history book, A Century of Revolution (1922). [1]
Kennedy was married on 20 June 1925 to the barrister David Davies (1889–1964), who later became a county court judge and a national insurance commissioner. He was knighted in 1952, making her full married name Margaret Davies, Lady Davies. [1] They had a son and two daughters, one of whom was the novelist Julia Birley, [2] born 13 May 1928 and author of at least 13 novels published between 1968 and 1985. The novelist Serena Mackesy is her granddaughter.
Kennedy died at Flora Forster's house at Adderbury, Oxfordshire on 31 July 1967. [3]
Kennedy is best appreciated today for her second novel, The Constant Nymph , which she adapted into a highly successful West End play that opened at the New Theatre, with Noël Coward and Edna Best in September 1926. Coward was replaced by John Gielgud during the run. [4] It was also successfully filmed in 1928 by Adrian Brunel and Alma Reville, directed by Brunel and Basil Dean, and starring Ivor Novello, Mabel Poulton and Benita Hume, and again in 1933, 1938 (for television), and 1943.
Kennedy's first novel was The Ladies of Lyndon (1923). Among later successes were The Fool of the Family (1930), a sequel to The Constant Nymph, and the psychological novel A Long Time Ago (1932). The Midas Touch (1938) was a Daily Mail book of the month, The Feast (1949) [5] a Literary Guild choice in the United States, and Troy Chimneys (1953) winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The darkly humorous The Heroes of Clone (1957) drew on her experience as a screenplay writer. She also published a biography of Jane Austen and a study of the art of fiction, Outlaws on Parnassus.
Kennedy followed the stage success of The Constant Nymph (adapted in conjunction with Basil Dean) with three more co-written plays. The most successful was Escape Me Never (1934), adapting The Fool of the Family, which was also filmed twice. [6]
Of her post-war novels, The Feast (1950) introduces the disaster first and the characters who may or may not have perished in it afterwards, as in Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey . The seaside hotel annihilated by the collapse of the cliff is replete with dysfunctional characters of all ages and sizes, so providing a fine balance of suspense, sympathy and even humour. Still, it works on other levels too. Her novelist granddaughter Serena Mackesy has called it "one of the cleverest bits of metaphor-working ever." [7] It was recently reprinted, as were Lucy Carmichael (1951) and The Midas Touch. [8] Her final novel, Not in the Calendar: The Story of a Friendship, involves a friendship between a daughter of a wealthy family and the deaf daughter of one of their servants.
Kennedy's family donated her papers and correspondence to Somerville College Library. [9]
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology.
The Constant Nymph is a 1924 novel by Margaret Kennedy. It tells how a teenage girl, Tessa Sanger, falls in love with a family friend, who eventually marries her cousin. It explores the protagonists' complex family histories, focusing on class, education and creativity.
Mary Augusta Ward was a British novelist who wrote under her married name as Mrs Humphry Ward. She worked to improve education for the poor setting up a Settlement in London and in 1908 she became the founding President of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League.
Alma Lucy Reville, Lady Hitchcock was an English screenwriter and film editor. She was the wife of film director Alfred Hitchcock. She collaborated on scripts for her husband's films, including Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion, and The Lady Vanishes, as well as scripts for other directors, including Henrik Galeen, Maurice Elvey, and Berthold Viertel.
Mabel Lilian Poulton was an English film actress, popular in Britain during the era of silent films.
The Constant Nymph is a 1928 British silent film drama, directed by Adrian Brunel and starring Ivor Novello and Mabel Poulton. This was the first film adaptation of the 1924 best-selling and controversial novel The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy and the 1926 stage play version written by Kennedy and Basil Dean. The theme of adolescent sexuality reportedly discomfited the British film censors, until they were reassured that lead actress Poulton was in fact in her 20s.
Patrick Skene Catling is a British journalist, author and book reviewer, best known for writing The Chocolate Touch in 1952. He has written 12 novels, 3 works of nonfiction and 9 books for children.
The Constant Nymph is a 1943 romantic drama film starring Charles Boyer, Joan Fontaine, Alexis Smith, Brenda Marshall, Charles Coburn, May Whitty, and Peter Lorre with a famous score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It was adapted by Kathryn Scola from the 1924 novel of the same name by Margaret Kennedy and the 1926 play by Kennedy and Basil Dean and directed by Edmund Goulding.
The Constant Nymph may refer to:
The Constant Nymph is a 1933 British drama film directed by Basil Dean and starring Victoria Hopper, Brian Aherne and Leonora Corbett. It is an adaptation of the 1924 novel The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy and the 1926 stage play adaptation written by Kennedy and Dean. Dean tried to persuade Novello to reprise his appearance from the 1928 silent version The Constant Nymph but was turned down and cast Aherne in the part instead. The film is set in Tyrol, western Austria. Previously filmed in 1928, the sentimental Margaret Kennedy novel The Constant Nymph was sumptuously remade by Gaumont-British Picture Corporation in 1933.
Serena Mackesy is a British novelist and journalist who lives in London.
The Constant Nymph is a play based on the 1924 novel of the same name by Margaret Kennedy. The stage version, adapted by Kennedy and the director Basil Dean, was first performed in London in 1926, starring Noël Coward, Edna Best and Cathleen Nesbitt. It portrays the love of two women for a young composer, and the conflicts that arise. The tragic ending has the younger of the two – a teenager – die of heart failure.
Stella Margetson was a British novelist and writer on historical subjects and social history, particularly specialising on books about the 19th century.
Flora Macrae Forster (1896–1981) was a Welsh educator and writer.
Lucy Carmichael is a 1951 romantic drama novel by the British writer Margaret Kennedy. It was her tenth published novel. It was well-received by critics but did not repeat the success of her earlier hits The Constant Nymph and Escape Me Never. It was a Literary Guild choice in America. In 2011 it was reissued by Faber and Faber.
The Midas Touch is a 1938 novel by the British writer Margaret Kennedy. It was her eighth novel, she then took a decade-long break before producing her next work The Feast in 1949. It was a Daily Mail Book of the Month.
Red Sky at Morning is a 1927 novel by the British writer Margaret Kennedy, her third. Her previous novel The Constant Nymph had been a major critical and commercial success, and it was felt that her new novel failed to recapture this. Sylvia Lynd reviewed it saying "Few novels have so exquisite a forerunner as The Constant Nymph with which to compete. Compared with that, Red Sky at Morning, it must be admitted, is far less moving, less inevitable in the progress of its events, and less well stocked with fascinating characters. Compared with any ordinary novel, however, it is very good indeed - finely wrought, just, sensible, perceptive and witty".
Return I Dare Not is a 1931 novel by the British writer Margaret Kennedy. It was her fifth novel. Although it sold well, it did not match the success of The Constant Nymph and its sequel The Fool of the Family
The Oracles is a 1955 comic novel by the British writer Margaret Kennedy. Kennedy was best known for The Constant Nymph and its sequel The Fool of the Family, but had enjoyed renewed success in the early 1950s, and her previous work Troy Chimneys was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It was published in the United States by Rinehart under the alternative title of Act of God.
The Fool of the Family is a 1930 novel by the British writer Margaret Kennedy. It is the sequel to her 1924 bestseller The Constant Nymph.