A Summer Bird-Cage is the 1963 debut novel by Margaret Drabble published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [1] The title of the novel is taken from a quotation from the play The White Devil by John Webster:
‘"Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out." [2]
The novel centres on two characters who are sisters, Sarah and Louise. At the beginning of the story Sarah (who has recently graduated from Oxford University) has returned from Paris in order to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of Louise to the wealthy novelist Stephen Halifax. Sarah is at a transitional stage in her life and is not sure what she wants to do after her recent university degree. She is in a state of limbo, waiting for the man that she is in love with (Francis, a historian) to return from Harvard. [3] The action pivots on the tensions between the two sisters, written from the perspective of Sarah who believes that Halifax is arrogant (an arrogance shared by her sister, in her view, which leads to profound friction between them). [4] To complicate the picture, it becomes clear to Sarah during the course of the novel that Louise is having an affair with actor John Connell. The friction between the sisters leads, eventually, to Sarah confronting Louise about the state of her life and attitudes to the world and other people. The book does not involve an enormous amount of action in terms of plot. The focus is rather upon an exploration of the two women's characters and personalities and the way in which they affect each other. [5]
Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe.
Dame Daphne du Maurier,, also known as Lady Browning after her husband was knighted in 1946, was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was George du Maurier, a writer and cartoonist.
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London and is among the earliest English works to be classified as a novel. It is the earliest novel mentioned by W. Somerset Maugham in his 1948 book Great Novelists and Their Novels among the ten best novels of the world.
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.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a 1969 autobiography describing the young and early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 16. In the course of Caged Bird, Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice.
Lauren Fenmore is a fictional character from The Young and the Restless, an American soap opera on the CBS network. Introduced by William J. Bell, the character made her debut during the episode airing on January 25, 1983, portrayed by Tracey E. Bregman. In 1992, Bregman brought the character to The Bold and the Beautiful, resulting in her migrating there fully in 1995. In 2000, Bregman returned to The Young and the Restless, remaining on a recurring status.
Mel Burton is a fictional character from the British television soap opera Hollyoaks, played by actress Cassie Powney. She made her first appearance during the episode broadcast on 23 September 2003. Powney joined the cast along with her twin Connie Powney, who plays Mel's twin sister Sophie Burton. They auditioned for the roles six months after deciding they should stop putting themselves forward for twin roles. Mel was introduced along with Joe Spencer and Robbie Flynn, as new students attending Hollyoaks College. The character's family were introduced a month later. Mel is characterised as being clever, introverted and more controlled than her sister.
Magpie is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. She was created by John Byrne, and first appeared in The Man of Steel #3.
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.
Last Tango in Halifax is a British comedy-drama series that began broadcasting on BBC One on 20 November 2012. Screenwriter Sally Wainwright loosely adapted the story of her mother's second marriage. The series stars Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as Alan and Celia.
Sound! Euphonium is a Japanese novel series written by Ayano Takeda. The story is set in Uji, Kyoto and focuses on the Kitauji High School Music Club, whose concert band is steadily improving thanks to the newly appointed adviser's strict instruction.
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 Pure Gold Baby is British novelist Margaret Drabble's 18th novel, first published in 2013. The novel was her first novel to be published in seven years, following The Sea Lady. In 2009, Drabble had pledged not to write fiction again, for fear of "repeating herself."
The Garrick Year is the second novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble, first published in 1964. It is a first-person account of Emma, a London wife and mother examining the fraught bits of her marriage and an affair.
The Radiant Way is a 1987 novel by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel provides social commentary and critique of 1980s Britain, by exploring the lives of three Cambridge-educated women with careers as knowledge professionals.
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".
Junko Enoshima is a fictional character and the primary overarching antagonist of Spike Chunsoft's Danganronpa series. Junko is featured as the main antagonist and mastermind in the first two games of the series as the true identity of the robotic teddy bear headmaster Monokuma, in the spin-off Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls in the guises of Monokuma variants Shirokuma and Kurokuma, and in the anime Danganronpa: The Animation and the "Despair Arc" of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School.
Four Souls (2004) is an entry in the Love Medicine series by Chippewa (Ojibwe) author Louise Erdrich. It was written after The Master Butcher’s Singing Club (2003) and before The Painted Drum (2005); however, the events of Four Souls take place after Tracks (1988). Four Souls follows Fleur Pillager, an Ojibwe woman, in her quest for revenge against the white man who stole her ancestral land. Fleur appears in many books in the series, and this novel takes place directly after her departure from the Little No Horse reservation at the end of Tracks. The novel is narrated by three characters, Nanapush, Polly Elizabeth, and Margaret, with Nanapush narrating all of the odd numbered chapters and Polly Elizabeth taking all but the last two even numbered chapters.