Elizabeth Jenkins (author)
Encyclopedia
Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins (31 October 1905 – 5 September 2010) was an English
novel
ist and biographer of Jane Austen
, Henry Fielding
, Lady Caroline Lamb
, Joseph Lister
and Elizabeth I
.
, Hertfordshire
. Her father, James Heald Jenkins, established the Caldicott School
in 1904, which he named for her mother, Theodora Caldicott Ingram.
She attended the Modern School and St Christopher School, Letchworth
and the women-only Newnham College, Cambridge
from 1921, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge
, where she studied English and history, though women were not eligible to receive a degree from the university until 1921.
She took a position teaching English at King Alfred School
in Hampstead
in 1929. During World War II, she left her teaching position and worked assisting Jewish refugees and London air-raid victims for the Assistance Board. She later worked in government positions for the Board of Trade
and the Ministry of Information.
, she met Edith Sitwell
and Virginia Woolf
, who would later call her first novel Virginia Water (1929) "a sweet white grape of a book". Positive reviews for the novel led to a deal with Victor Gollancz Ltd
to publish three more books.
Her 1934 novel Harriet, about a woman whose relatives attempt to starve her to death to get to her inheritance, won the Prix Femina
. The novels Doubtful Joy followed in 1935 and The Phoenix' Nest in 1936. Other novels include Robert and Helen (1944) and The Tortoise and the Hare (1954). The latter book, about a marriage that was deeply troubled despite surface appearances, was praised by Hilary Mantel
of The Sunday Times
as showing that Jenkins "seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged".
Her 1972 novel Dr. Gully's Story, Jenkins' favourite, retold the story of the 19th-century physician James Manby Gully
, whose affair with Florence Bravo, and the subsequent poisoning death of her husband Charles Bravo
, led to never-proven suspicions that Gully had committed murder.
where she wrote Emma
and other novels, and which later became the site of Jane Austen's House Museum
.
Her 1958 biography Elizabeth the Great "showed her biographical talents at their most effective" and provided what The New York Times
called "a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted", an attribute that could also be seen in her 1960 book Joseph Lister. A. L. Rowse
said that her biography of Elizabeth I "got nearer to penetrating the secret of the most remarkable woman in history than any other". In her 1961 book Elizabeth and Leicester, Jenkins presented her hypothesis that the violent ends of Anne Boleyn
and Catherine Howard
had made Elizabeth unable to establish a full sexual relationship with Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
, because she associated sex with death.
home she bought in Hampstead. She moved into the house in 1939 and decorated it with Regency style
furniture that she had acquired inexpensively in the years following World War II from period houses that had been damaged during the war. She would later say that, based on her decor, "people assumed I was comfortably off, instead of being very hard up".
Jenkins died at the age of 104 on 5 September 2010 at a nursing home in Hampstead
, London
, where she had resided in the years before her death. She never married.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist and biographer of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
, Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb
The Lady Caroline Lamb was a British aristocrat and novelist, best known for her affair with Lord Byron in 1812. Her husband was the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the Prime Minister...
, Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister may refer to:*Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister , English surgeon, discovered that cleaning and disinfecting surgical wounds, and bandages, with carbolic acid prevents lethal infections...
and Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
.
Early life
Jenkins was born on 31 October 1905 in HitchinHitchin
Hitchin is a town in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 30,360.-History:Hitchin is first noted as the central place of the Hicce people mentioned in a 7th century document, the Tribal Hidage. The tribal name is Brittonic rather than Old English and derives from *siccā, meaning...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. Her father, James Heald Jenkins, established the Caldicott School
Caldicott School
Caldicott, formally known as Caldicott Preparatory School, is a Prep School for boys aged 7–13, close to London.- About Caldicott :Caldicott Preparatory School was founded in Hitchin, Hertfordshire in 1904 by James Heald Jenkins who named his school after his new bride, a Miss Theodora Caldicott...
in 1904, which he named for her mother, Theodora Caldicott Ingram.
She attended the Modern School and St Christopher School, Letchworth
St Christopher School, Letchworth
St Christopher School is a boarding and day co-educational independent school located in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire. Established in 1915 shortly after Ebenezer Howard founded Letchworth Garden City, the school is a long-time proponent of progressive education...
and the women-only Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...
from 1921, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, where she studied English and history, though women were not eligible to receive a degree from the university until 1921.
She took a position teaching English at King Alfred School
The King Alfred School, Highbridge
The King Alfred School is a coeducational comprehensive school located in Highbridge, Somerset, England. The school is a specialist Sports College. In 2007, the school celebrated its 50th anniversary....
in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
in 1929. During World War II, she left her teaching position and worked assisting Jewish refugees and London air-raid victims for the Assistance Board. She later worked in government positions for the Board of Trade
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions...
and the Ministry of Information.
Novelist
Through Newnham's principal Pernel Strachey, sister of Lytton StracheyLytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
, she met Edith Sitwell
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
and Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, who would later call her first novel Virginia Water (1929) "a sweet white grape of a book". Positive reviews for the novel led to a deal with Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership...
to publish three more books.
Her 1934 novel Harriet, about a woman whose relatives attempt to starve her to death to get to her inheritance, won the Prix Femina
Prix Femina
The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine La Vie heureuse . The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female jury, although the authors of the winning works do not have to be women...
. The novels Doubtful Joy followed in 1935 and The Phoenix' Nest in 1936. Other novels include Robert and Helen (1944) and The Tortoise and the Hare (1954). The latter book, about a marriage that was deeply troubled despite surface appearances, was praised by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mary Mantel CBE , née Thompson, is an English novelist, short story writer and critic. Her work, ranging in subject from personal memoir to historical fiction, has been short-listed for major literary awards...
of The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
as showing that Jenkins "seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged".
Her 1972 novel Dr. Gully's Story, Jenkins' favourite, retold the story of the 19th-century physician James Manby Gully
James Manby Gully
Dr James Manby Gully , was a Victorian medical doctor, well known for practising hydrotherapy, or the "water cure". Along with his partner James Wilson, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" clinic in Malvern, Worcestershire, which had many notable Victorians, including such figures as Charles...
, whose affair with Florence Bravo, and the subsequent poisoning death of her husband Charles Bravo
Charles Bravo
Charles Bravo was a British lawyer who was fatally poisoned with antimony in 1876. The case is still sensational, notorious and unresolved. The case is also known as The Charles Bravo Murder and the Murder at the Priory.It was an unsolved crime committed within an elite Victorian household at The...
, led to never-proven suspicions that Gully had committed murder.
Biographer
Jenkins published biographies of Lady Caroline Lamb in 1932 and of Jane Austen in 1938. She was involved in the establishment of the Jane Austen Society in 1940 and worked to purchase Austen's home in ChawtonChawton
Chawton is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 1.6 miles southwest of Alton, just south of the A31 which runs between Farnham and Winchester. The village is famous as the home of Jane Austen for the last eight years of her life...
where she wrote Emma
Emma
Emma, by Jane Austen, is a novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among...
and other novels, and which later became the site of Jane Austen's House Museum
Jane Austen's House Museum
Jane Austen's House Museum is a small private museum in the village of Chawton near Alton in Hampshire. It occupies the 17th century house in which novelist Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life and where she wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion.Jane Austen's House Museum was...
.
Her 1958 biography Elizabeth the Great "showed her biographical talents at their most effective" and provided what The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called "a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted", an attribute that could also be seen in her 1960 book Joseph Lister. A. L. Rowse
A. L. Rowse
Alfred Leslie Rowse, CH, FBA , known professionally as A. L. Rowse and to friends and family as Leslie, was a British historian from Cornwall. He is perhaps best known for his work on Elizabethan England and his poetry about Cornwall. He was also a Shakespearean scholar and biographer...
said that her biography of Elizabeth I "got nearer to penetrating the secret of the most remarkable woman in history than any other". In her 1961 book Elizabeth and Leicester, Jenkins presented her hypothesis that the violent ends of Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...
and Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard , also spelled Katherine, Katheryn or Kathryn, was the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, and sometimes known by his reference to her as his "rose without a thorn"....
had made Elizabeth unable to establish a full sexual relationship with Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, KG was an English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death...
, because she associated sex with death.
Later life
In all, Jenkins wrote a dozen novels and a dozen biographies. Her 2004 memoir The View from Downshire Hill recounted her decades of living in a Regency architectureRegency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
home she bought in Hampstead. She moved into the house in 1939 and decorated it with Regency style
Regency architecture
The Regency style of architecture refers primarily to buildings built in Britain during the period in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to later buildings following the same style...
furniture that she had acquired inexpensively in the years following World War II from period houses that had been damaged during the war. She would later say that, based on her decor, "people assumed I was comfortably off, instead of being very hard up".
Jenkins died at the age of 104 on 5 September 2010 at a nursing home in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where she had resided in the years before her death. She never married.