Name Violet Powell Role Writer | Died January 12, 2002 Spouse Anthony Powell (m. 1934) | |
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Parents Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford Books Within the Family Circle: An Autobiography Siblings Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford Similar People Anthony Powell, Frank Pakenham - 7th Earl o, Elizabeth Pakenham - Countess, Thomas Pakenham, Antonia Fraser | ||
Lady Violet Powell (13 March 1912 – 12 January 2002), born Violet Georgiana Pakenham, was a writer and critic. Her husband was author Anthony Powell.
Contents
Life and career
Lady Violet was the third daughter of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford and Lady Mary Julia Child Villiers (daughter of Victor Child-Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey). She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey.
A member of a literary family, Lady Violet's brothers were Edward Pakenham and Frank Pakenham, while her sisters included Lady Pansy Lamb and Mary Pakenham. She was herself a distinguished memoirist and biographer. Her The Life of a Provincial Lady (1988), on the life of E. M. Delafield, has been called by one critic "one of the best literary biographies of a British writer in the twentieth century". Those who knew the couple well believed that Lady Violet made significant contributions to the richness, depth and polish of her husband's work. She also wrote a biography of the English novelist Flora Annie Steel.
Influence
She is generally taken to be the model for the character of Isobel Tolland in her husband's novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time.
Books
Some of her books are:
Autobiography
- Five Out of Six: An Autobiography (a reference to her birth order amongst her siblings)
- Within the Family Circle: An Autobiography
- The Departure Platform: An Autobiography
- A Stone in the Shade: Last Memoirs
Personal life
She married Anthony Powell (21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) on 1 December 1934 at All Saints Anglican Church, Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge; they had two children, Tristram and John.