Name Marghanita Laski | Education University of Oxford Movies Little Boy Lost | |
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Died February 6, 1988, Dublin, Republic of Ireland Books Little Boy Lost, The Victorian Chaise‑Longue, To Bed with Grand Music, Village, Jane Austen Similar People George Seaton, Jane Austen, William Perlberg | ||
The Tower by Marghanita Laski
Marghanita Laski (24 October 1915 – 6 February 1988) was an English journalist, radio panellist and novelist; she also wrote literary biography, plays and short stories.
Contents
- The Tower by Marghanita Laski
- Personal life
- Career
- Broadcasting
- Religious views
- Critical reception
- Death
- Works
- Republished by Persephone Books
- References
Personal life
Marghanita Laski was born in Manchester, England, to a prominent family of Jewish intellectuals (Neville Laski was her father, Moses Gaster her grandfather and Harold Laski her uncle), she was educated at Lady Barn House School and St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, worked in fashion, then studied English at Somerville College, Oxford
In 1937 she married publisher John Eldred Howard, a founder of the Cresset Press in Paris, and worked in journalism.
Laski lived in Hampstead and Abbots Langley.
Career
After her son and daughter were born, Laski began writing in earnest. An omnivorous reader, from 1958 onward she became a prolific and compulsive contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary and by 1986 had "carded" around 250,000 quotations, making her (according to Ilan Stavans) "the supreme contributor, male or female, to the OED".
In the 1960s, Laski was the science fiction critic for The Observer. Elected Vice Chairwoman of the Arts Council in 1982, she served as chair of its Literature Panel between 1980 and 1984.
Broadcasting
Laski was a panelist on the popular UK BBC panel show What's My Line? (1951–63), The Brains Trust (late 1950s), and Any Questions? (1960s).
Religious views
An avowed atheist, she was also a keen supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Her play, The Offshore Island, is about nuclear warfare.
Critical reception
Anthony Boucher described her novella The Victorian Chaise Longue as "an admirably written book, highly skilled in its economic evocation of time, place and character -- and a relentlessly terrifying one." Ecstasy: A Study of Some Secular and Religious Experiences has been compared to The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James in its importance.
Death
She died in London (see her DNB entry) on 6 February 1988, aged 72, and was survived by her husband and children.
Works
Republished by Persephone Books
Persephone Books reprinted The Victorian Chaise-longue in 1999, Little Boy Lost in 2001, The Village in 2004 and To Bed with Grand Music in 2009.