Margaret Forster

Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer Margaret Forster (25 May 1938 – 8 February 2016) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic, best known for the 1965 novel Georgy Girl, made into a successful film of the same name, which inspired a hit song by The Seekers. Other successes were a 2003 novel, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and her memoirs Hidden Lives and Precious Lives.

Early life and education

Forster was born in the Raffles council estate in Carlisle, England. Her father, Arthur Forster, was a mechanic or factory fitter, her mother, Lilian (née Hind), a housewife who had worked as a clerk or secretary before her marriage.<ref name=Guardian_Armistead>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Gorb/>

Forster attended Carlisle and County High School for Girls (1949–1956), a grammar school.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Life_in_Houses/> She went on to win an open scholarship to study history at Somerville College, Oxford, graduating in 1960.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> Her first job was two years (1961–1963) of teaching English at Barnsbury Girls' School in Islington, north London. During that time she started to write, but her first draft novel was rejected.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/>

Writing

Novels

Forster's first published novel Dames' Delight, loosely based on her experiences at Oxford, launched her writing career in 1964.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> Her second, published the following year, was a bestseller: Georgy Girl describes the choices open to a young working-class woman in London in the Swinging Sixties. It was adapted as a successful 1966 film starring Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, with Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates and James Mason,<ref name=Guardian_Armistead /><ref name=Telegraph_obit>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=bbc/> for which Forster co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Nichols.<ref name=British_Council/> The book was also adapted as a short-lived Broadway musical, Georgy, in 1970.

Forster wrote prolifically in the 1960s and 1970s while bringing up three children, but later criticised many of her own early novels as "skittery",<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> feeling she had not found a voice until her 1974 novel The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> Those early novels are mainly light and humorous, driven by a strong plot.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> An exception was The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff (1967), which presents the difference in values between generations in a Glaswegian family.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/>

The theme of family relations became prominent in her later works. Mother, Can You Hear Me? (1979) and Private Papers (1986) are darker in tone. She tackled subjects such as single mothers and young offenders.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb /> Have the Men Had Enough? (1989) scours care of the elderly and the problem of Alzheimer's disease, inspired by her mother-in-law's decline and death from the disease.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/><ref name=Telegraph_Chilton/> In 1991, she and her husband, Hunter Davies, contributed to a BBC2 First Sight episode "When Love Isn't Enough", telling Marion Davies's story; Forster sharply criticised government policies on care for the elderly.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

The publisher Carmen Callil sees as Forster's best work Lady's Maid (1990), a historical novel about Elizabeth Barrett Browning viewed through the eyes of her maid.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> Diary of an Ordinary Woman (2003), narrated as the diary of a fictional woman who lives through the major events of the 20th century, is so realistic that many readers believed it was an authentic diary.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb>Template:Citation</ref><ref name=bbc/><ref name=Telegraph_Chilton/> Other later novels include The Memory Box (1999)<ref name=British_Council /><ref name=Telegraph_Chilton/> and Is There Anything You Want? (2005).<ref name=British_Council/> Her final novel, How to Measure a Cow, was published in March 2016.<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/>

Forster published over 25 novels.<ref name=bbc/> A lifelong feminist and socialist, most of her works address these themes.<ref name=Guardian_Armistead /><ref name=Telegraph_obit/> Callil ascribes to Forster a world view "shaped by her sense of her working-class origins: most of her stories were about women's lives."<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/> Author Valerie Grove places her novels as being about "women's lives and the deceit within families".<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/>

Biographies, memoirs and other non-fiction

Forster's non-fiction included 14 biographies, historical works and memoirs.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> Her best-known biographies are those of the novelist Daphne du Maurier (1993) and the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1988).<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/><ref name=bbc/> The former was a groundbreaking exploration of the author's sexuality and her association with Gertrude Lawrence,<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/> filmed by the BBC as Daphne in 2007.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> In her biography of Barrett Browning, Forster draws on recently found letters and papers that shed light on the poet's life before she met and eloped with Robert Browning, replacing the myth of an invalid poet guarded by an ogre-like father with a more nuanced picture of an active, difficult woman, complicit in her virtual imprisonment.<ref name=Avery_Stott>Template:Citation</ref><ref name=Byrd>Template:Citation</ref><ref name=David>Template:Citation</ref>

Forster also wrote fictionalised biographies of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1978)<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/><ref name=bbc /> and the artist Gwen John (2006).<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Significant Sisters (1984) chronicled the growing feminist movement through the lives of eight pioneering British and American women: Caroline Norton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Florence Nightingale, Emily Davies, Josephine Butler, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Gorb/><ref>Template:Citation</ref> Good Wives (2001) surveyed contemporary and historical women married to famous men, including Mary Livingstone, Fanny Stevenson, Jennie Lee and herself.<ref name=Telegraph_obit /><ref name=British_Council /> Her other historical writings include Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin (1997), an account of the Carr's biscuit factory in Carlisle.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/>

Forster's two memoirs based on her family background, Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir (1995) and Precious Lives (1998) join an autobiographical My Life in Houses (2014).<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/><ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> Hidden Lives, drawing on the life of her grandmother, a servant with a secret illegitimate daughter, was praised by the historian and critic Claire Tomalin as "a slice of history to be recalled whenever people lament the lovely world we have lost."<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> Frances Osborne cites it as her own inspiration for becoming a biographer: "It opened my eyes to how riveting the history of real girl-next-door women could be."<ref>Template:Citation</ref> The sequel, Precious Lives, tackled Forster's father, whom she reportedly disliked.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Gorb/>

Broadcasting, journalism and other roles

Forster joined the BBC Advisory Committee on the Social Effects of Television (1975–1977) and the Arts Council Literary Panel (1978–1981).<ref name=British_Council>Template:Citation</ref> She served as a Booker Prize judge in 1980.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> She was the main non-fiction reviewer for the Evening Standard (1977–1980).<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> She contributed often to literature programmes on television and BBC Radio 4, and to newspapers and magazines.<ref name=British_Council /> She was interviewed by Sue Lawley for Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1994.<ref name=Desert_Island>Template:Citation</ref>

Awards

Forster was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> She gained several awards for non-fiction. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography won the Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature (1988),<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Telegraph_Chilton/> Daphne du Maurier the Writers' Guild Award for Best Non-Fiction (1993)<ref name=Telegraph_Chilton>Template:Cite news</ref> and the Fawcett Society Book Prize (1994).<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: A Family and Their Times 1831–1931 won the Lex Prize of The Global Business Book Award (1998).<ref>Book Awards: Global Business Book Award Template:Webarchive (accessed 9 February 2016)</ref> Precious Lives won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography (1999).<ref name=Telegraph_obit/>

Personal life

Forster met the writer, journalist and broadcaster Hunter Davies when they were both living in Carlisle as teenagers. They married in 1960, immediately after she had completed her finals. The marriage lasted until Forster's death.<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/><ref name=Telegraph_obit/>

They moved to London, where Davies had a job in journalism, at first living in rented accommodation in Hampstead, then buying and renovating a Victorian house in Boscastle Road, Dartmouth Park, north London, which remained their main home.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=Guardian_Gorb/><ref name=Guardian_Life_in_Houses /><ref name=Spectator_review/>

After the success of Georgy Girl in the mid-1960s, Forster bought a house for her mother.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> The couple had three children, a son and two daughters; Caitlin Davies is an author and journalist.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/><ref name=bbc/> The family lived for some time in the Algarve in Portugal, before returning to London. They also had homes in Caldbeck and Loweswater in the Lake District.<ref name=Guardian_Life_in_Houses>Template:Cite news</ref>

She led a somewhat reclusive life, often refusing to attend book signings and other publicity events.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb /> Her friends included Carlisle-born broadcaster Melvyn Bragg and playwright Dennis Potter.<ref name=Telegraph_obit/> Forster contracted breast cancer in the 1970s and had two mastectomies.<ref name=Spectator_review/> A further cancer diagnosis ensued in 2007.<ref name=Guardian_Gorb/> By 2014, the cancer had metastasized,<ref name=Spectator_review>Template:Cite news</ref> and she died in February 2016, aged 77.<ref name=Guardian_Armistead/><ref name=bbc>Template:Cite news</ref>

Legacy

The British Library acquired the Margaret Forster Archive in March 2018, which consists of material relating to her works, professional and private correspondence, and personal papers. It includes manuscripts and typescript drafts of most of her published work, and some personal diaries.<ref>Margaret Forster Archive, the British Library archives and manuscripts catalogue. Retrieved 11 May 2020.</ref>

Selected works

Novels

• Dames' Delight (Jonathan Cape, 1964)
• The Bogeyman (Secker & Warburg, 1965)
• Georgy Girl (Secker & Warburg, 1965)
• The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff (Secker & Warburg, 1967)
• The Park (Secker & Warburg, 1968)
• Miss Owen-Owen is at Home (Secker & Warburg, 1969)
• Fenella Phizackerley (Secker & Warburg, 1970)
• Mr Bone's Retreat (Secker & Warburg, 1971)
• The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury (Secker & Warburg, 1974)
• Mother Can You Hear Me? (Secker & Warburg, 1979)
• The Bride of Lowther Fell: a Romance (Secker & Warburg, 1980)
• Marital Rites (Secker & Warburg, 1981)
• Private Papers (Chatto & Windus, 1986)

• Have the Men Had Enough? (Chatto & Windus, 1989)
• Lady's Maid (Chatto & Windus, 1990)
• The Battle for Christabel (Chatto & Windus, 1991)
• Mother's Boys (Chatto & Windus, 1994)
• Shadow Baby (Chatto & Windus, 1996)
• The Memory Box (Chatto & Windus, 1999)
• Diary of an Ordinary Woman 1914–1995 (Chatto & Windus, 2003)
• Is There Anything You Want? (Chatto & Windus, 2005)
• Keeping the World Away (Chatto & Windus, 2006)
• Over (Chatto & Windus, 2007)
• Isa and May (Chatto & Windus, 2010)
• The Unknown Bridesmaid (Chatto & Windus, 2013)
• How to Measure a Cow (Chatto & Windus, 2016)

Biography and history

• The Rash Adventurer: The Rise and Fall of Charles Edward Stuart (Secker & Warburg, 1973)
• Memoirs of a Victorian Gentleman: William Makepeace Thackeray (Secker & Warburg, 1978)
• Significant Sisters: The Grassroots of Active Feminism 1839–1939 (Secker & Warburg, 1984)
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography (Chatto & Windus, 1988)

• Daphne du Maurier (Chatto & Windus, 1993)
• Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: A Family and Their Times 1831–1931 (Chatto & Windus, 1997)
• Good Wives?: Mary, Fanny, Jennie & Me 1845–2001 (Chatto & Windus, 2001)
• Keeping the World Away (Chatto & Windus, 2006)

Family memoirs and autobiography

• Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir (Viking, 1995)
• Precious Lives (Chatto & Windus, 1998)
• My Life in Houses (Chatto & Windus, 2014)
• Diary of an Ordinary Schoolgirl (Chatto & Windus, 2017)

Literary editions

• Drawn from Life: The Journalism of William Makepeace Thackeray (editor) (Folio Society, 1984)
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Selected Poems (editor) (Chatto & Windus, 1988)
• Virginia Woolf, Flush: A Biography (1933) New intro. by Margaret Forster (Hogarth Press, 1991)

Further reading

• David Bordelon, "Margaret Forster", in Twentieth Century Literary Biographers (Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 155) (Detroit: Gale, 1995), pp. 76–87
• "Forster, Margaret" in The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th ed. rev., ed. Margaret Drabble. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
• Rosanna Greenstreet, "My perfect weekend: Margaret Forster", The Times, 19 December 1992 [Interview]
• "Margaret Forster'", Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 149 (Detroit: Gale, 2002), pp. 62–107
• "Margaret Forster", Contemporary British Novelists, ed. Nick Rennison (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 72–76, Template:ISBN
• Merritt Moseley, "Margaret Forster", British and Irish Novelists since 1960 (Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 271, Detroit: Gale, 2003), pp. 139–155
• Christina Patterson, "A life less ordinary: Margaret Forster worries, after 30 books, that she loves writing too much", The Independent, 15 March 2003, pp. 20–21 [Interview]
• Annie Taylor, "The difference a day made (14 May 1957)... Margaret Forster was on a mission", The Guardian, 6 June 1996 [Interview]
• Kathleen Jones Margaret Forster: An Introduction (Northern Lights; 2003, Template:ISBN)
• Kathleen Jones, Margaret Forster: A Life in Books (The Book Mill; 2012, Template:ISBN)

External links

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• Lindsay, Cora, 'Critical perspective (and biog & bibliog. on Margaret Forster)' Contemporary Writers (British Council)
• Margaret Forster at Random House (publisher's website)
• Margaret Forster discusses her latest book Isa and May with The Interview Online