Nationality British Movies Mr. Wrong Role Novelist | Name Elizabeth Howard Genre Fiction, non-fiction Children Nicola Scott | |
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Born 26 March 1923London, England, UK ( 1923-03-26 ) Occupation Actress, model and novelist Died January 2, 2014, Bungay, United Kingdom Books The light years, All Change: Cazalet C, Casting Off: The Cazalet C, Marking time, Slipstream Similar People Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, Robert Aickman, Peter Scott, Kathleen Scott | ||
Elizabeth jane howard a simple tribute
Elizabeth Jane Howard, CBE, FRSL (26 March 1923 – 2 January 2014), was an English novelist. She had previously been an actress and a model.
Contents
- Elizabeth jane howard a simple tribute
- Img 4200 hi there its me on elizabeth jane howard mrs gaskell and food
- Career
- Personal life
- Works
- Autobiography and biographies
- References
Img 4200 hi there its me on elizabeth jane howard mrs gaskell and food
Career
In 1951, she won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her first novel, The Beautiful Visit (1950). Six further novels followed, before she embarked on her best known work, The Cazalet Chronicle, a family saga "about the ways in which English life changed during the war years, particularly for women." The first four volumes, The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off, were published from 1990 to 1995 and the fifth, All Change, in 2013.
The first two works were serialised by Cinema Verity for BBC Television as The Cazalets in 2001. A BBC Radio 4 version in 45 episodes was also broadcast from 2012.
Howard wrote the screenplay for the 1989 movie, Getting It Right, based on her 1982 novel of the same name and directed by Randal Kleiser.
She also wrote a book of short stories, Mr. Wrong (1975) and edited two anthologies.
Personal life
Howard's parents were David Liddon Howard (1896–1958), a timber merchant, and Katharine Margaret ('Kit') Somervell (1895-1975), a dancer with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, daughter of the composer Sir Arthur Somervell. One of her brothers, Colin, lived with her and her third husband, Sir Kingsley Amis, for seventeen years. She was educated at Francis Holland School and studied domestic science and drama at Ebury Street, London.
Howard married Peter Scott in 1942, at age 19, and they had a daughter, Nicola (born 1943). Howard left Scott in 1946, and they were divorced in 1951. At this time she was employed as part-time secretary to the pioneering canals conservation organization the Inland Waterways Association, where she met and collaborated with Robert Aickman on the story collection, We Are for the Dark (1951). She had an affair with Aickman, described in her autobiography Slipstream (2002).
Her second marriage, to Australian broadcaster James Douglas-Henry in 1958, was brief. Her third marriage, to novelist Sir Kingsley Amis, whom she met while helping organise the Cheltenham Literary Festival, lasted from 1965 to 1983; for part of that time, 1968–1976, they lived at Lemmons, a Georgian house in Barnet, where Howard wrote Something in Disguise (1969). Her stepson, Martin Amis, has credited her with encouraging him to become a more serious reader and writer.
In later life, Howard lived in Bungay, Suffolk, and was appointed CBE in 2000. She died at home on 2 January 2014, aged 90.
Works
Autobiography and biographies
Howard's autobiography, Slipstream, was published in 2002. A biography, entitled Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence by Artemis Cooper, was published by John Murray in 2017. A reviewer said it was "strongest in the case it makes for the virtues of Howard's fiction".