publ. Weidenfeld & Nicolson
The Realms of Gold is a 1975 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel explores the mid-life experiences of anthropologist Frances Wingate and her affair with Karel Schmidt. [1]
The Realms of Gold is a 1975 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel explores the mid-life experiences of anthropologist Frances Wingate and her affair with Karel Schmidt. [1]
Drabble describes the initial inspiration for the novel in an interview in The Paris Review: [2]
I was trying to think of something really amusing and cheerful and I thought of the octopus I saw in the museum at Naples. I can't remember what I was doing in this maritime museum. I can't remember who took me. But suddenly there it was, a lot of imagery of nature: the natural world of species, the flora and fauna, the fact that Frances's father studied newts. It all just seemed to fit very nicely.
— [2]
The novel is primarily a reflection on Wingate's life, but critic Broyard, describes the novels best features are "Brilliant little essays" about life and life issues. [1]
Reception of the novel was mixed. New York Times reviewer Anatole Broyard described the novel as "drenched with intelligence, that is not enough to make it work." [1] Broyard compared Drabble's poor work to the poor subsequent novels by Edna O'Brien and Gail Godwin. [1] Kirkus review was much more positive about the novel, calling it "a conspicuous pleasure to read--a cheerful reconciliation of the exactions of the past and the possibilities that lie just ahead." [3]
The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. It is narrated by 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain. Zuckerman acts largely as an observer as the complex story of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics, is slowly revealed.
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt, is an English novelist, poet and Booker Prize winner, and won the 2017 Park Kyong-ni Prize. In 2008, The Times named her on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
The Mahdi is a 1981 thriller novel by Philip Nicholson, writing as A. J. Quinnell. The book was published in 1981 by Macmillan in the UK then in January 1982 by William Morrow & Co in the US and deals with political power struggles over a presumed Muslim prophet.
Anatole Paul Broyard was an American writer, literary critic, and editor who wrote for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays, and two books during his lifetime. His autobiographical works, Intoxicated by My Illness (1992) and Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir (1993), were published after his death.
Blanche McCrary Boyd is an American author whose novels are known for their eccentric characters. She is currently the Roman and Tatiana Weller Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Connecticut College.
The Haj is a novel published in 1984 by American author Leon Uris that tells the story of the birth of Israel from the viewpoint of a Palestinian Arab.
Inside Mr Enderby is the first volume of the Enderby series, a quartet of comic novels by the British author Anthony Burgess.
Hilma Wolitzer is an American novelist.
Maureen Theresa Howard was an American novelist, memoirist, and editor. Her award-winning novels feature women protagonists and are known for formal innovation and a focus on the Irish-American experience.
Pictures of Fidelman: An Exhibition is the fifth published novel of Bernard Malamud. It is a novel in the form of a short story cycle, which gathers six stories dealing with Arthur Fidelman, an art student from the Bronx who travels to Italy, initially to research Giotto, but also with the hopes of becoming a painter. It was published in 1969 and includes stories from Malamud's earlier collections The Magic Barrel (1958) and Idiots First (1963), plus two previously uncollected stories and one previously unpublished story.
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.
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.
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 Middle Ground is a 1980 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. It is her ninth published novel. The novel explores the "crisis of British urban life" through the eyes of a middle aged journalist, Kate Armstrong.
The Needle's Eye is a 1972 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel was well received by reviewers, like contemporary novelist Joyce Carol Oates. Though it was her fifth novel, Drabble described it as her first time that she could "actually write a novel" expressing what she wanted to write.
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".
A Natural Curiosity is a 1989 novel by Margaret Drabble. The novel is an unintended sequel to Drabble's 1987 novel The Radiant Way, follows the lives of the three protagonist women first introduced in that novel. The novel continues Drabble's interest in exploring the contemporary experience of the British middle class through the eyes of women.
The Ice Age is a 1977 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel follows the experiences of former BBC producer Anthony Keating as he experiences the ups and downs of life during the 1960s and 1970s. Depicting the property crisis in Britain during that period, novel diverges from her earlier psychological studies of individuals, focusing more on the "state of England".
A Very Private Eye is a 1984 publication of writings by the English novelist Barbara Pym, subtitled An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters. Released after Pym's death, the volume was edited by Pym's sister Hilary and her literary executor Hazel Holt.