Margaret Forster is a British author. She was born in Carlisle, England

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...

, where she attended Carlisle and County High School for Girls (1949–1956), and then won an Open Scholarship to read modern history at Somerville College, Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, from where she graduated in 1960.

After a short period as a teacher at Barnsbury Girls' School in Islington

Islington

Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

, north 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...

 (1961–1963), she has worked as a novelist, biographer and freelance literary critic, contributing regularly to book programmes on television, to BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 and various newspapers and magazines. She was a member of the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Advisory Committee on the Social Effects of Television (1975-1977), the Arts Council

Arts council

An arts council is a government or private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing events at home and abroad...

 Literary Panel (1978-1981), and chief reviewer for non-fiction in the Evening Standard

Evening Standard

The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

 (1977-1980). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

 in 1975.

Forster is married to the writer, journalist and broadcaster Hunter Davies

Hunter Davies

Edward Hunter Davies is a prolific British author, journalist and broadcaster, perhaps best known for writing the only authorised biography of The Beatles.- Early life :...

. They live in London and in the Lake District

Lake District

The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...

.

She is the author of many successful novels, including Georgy Girl (1965) (filmed in 1966

Georgy Girl

Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen....

 and adapted for a short-lived 1970 Broadway musical

Georgy

Georgy is a musical with a book by Tom Mankiewicz, lyrics by Carole Bayer, and music by George Fischoff.Based on the Margaret Forster novel Georgy Girl and the subsequent 1966 film adaptation, it tells the story of awkward, overweight, dowdy music teacher Georgy; her beautiful, self-centered...

), Lady's Maid (1990), Diary of an Ordinary Woman

Diary of an Ordinary Woman

Diary of an Ordinary Woman is a novel framed as an 'edited' diary of fictional woman Millicent King , written by Margaret Forster.-Plot:...

(2003), Have the Men Had Enough? (1989) and The Memory Box (1999), two memoirs, Hidden Lives (1995) and Precious Lives (1998), and several acclaimed biographies, most recently Good Wives (2001) and a fictionalised biography of the artist Gwen John

Gwen John

Gwendolen Mary John was a Welsh artist who worked in France for most of her career. She is noted for her still lifes and for her portraits, especially of anonymous female sitters...

, Keeping the world away (2006). She wrote Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin (1997), an account of the Carr's biscuit factory in Carlisle.

She has won awards for both her fiction and non-fiction works :
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: a biography (Heinemann Award, 1989); Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller (Writers' Guild

Writers' Guild of Great Britain

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain, established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds .-Activities:...

 Award for Best Non-Fiction, 1993 - Fawcett Society

Fawcett Society

The Fawcett Society is an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigns for women's rights. The organisation's roots date back to 1866 when Millicent Garrett Fawcett dedicated her life to the peaceful campaign for women's suffrage....

 Book Prize, 1994); Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: a Family and Their Times 1831-1931 (Lex Prize of The Global Business Book Award, 1997); Precious Lives (J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography

J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography

The J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography is awarded annually by the English Centre for International PEN to given to a literary autobiography of excellence, written by an author of British nationality and published during the preceding year. The winner receives £1,000 and a silver pen. The winner...

, 1999).

Works

Fiction

• 1964 Dames' Delight (Jonathan Cape)
• 1965 The Bogeyman (Secker & Warburg)
• 1965 Georgy Girl
  Georgy Girl
  Georgy Girl is a 1966 British film based on a novel by Margaret Forster. The film was directed by Silvio Narizzano and starred Lynn Redgrave as Georgy, Alan Bates, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Bill Owen....
  
  (Secker & Warburg)
• 1967 The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff (Secker & Warburg)
• 1967 A Girl called Fathom (Heinemann)
• 1968 The Park (Secker & Warburg)
• 1969 Miss Owen-Owen is at Home (Secker & Warburg)
• 1970 Fenella Phizackerley (Secker & Warburg)
• 1971 Mr Bone's Retreat (Secker & Warburg)
• 1974 The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury (Secker & Warburg)
• 1979 Mother Can You Hear Me? (Secker & Warburg)
• 1980 The Bride of Lowther Fell: a Romance (Secker & Warburg)
• 1981 Marital Rites (Secker & Warburg)
• 1986 Private Papers (Chatto & Windus)
• 1989 Have the Men Had Enough? (Chatto & Windus)
• 1990 Lady's Maid (Chatto & Windus)
• 1991 The Battle for Christabel (Chatto & Windus)
• 1994 Mother's Boys (Chatto & Windus)
• 1996 Shadow Baby (Chatto & Windus)
• 1999 The Memory Box (Chatto & Windus)
• 2003 Diary of an Ordinary Woman
  Diary of an Ordinary Woman
  Diary of an Ordinary Woman is a novel framed as an 'edited' diary of fictional woman Millicent King , written by Margaret Forster.-Plot:...
  
   1914-1995 (Chatto & Windus)
• 2005 Is There Anything You Want? (Chatto & Windus)
• 2006 Keeping the World Away (Chatto & Windus)
• 2007 Over (Chatto & Windus)
• 2010 Isa and May (Chatto & Windus)

Biography and history

• 1973 The Rash Adventurer: the rise and fall of Charles Edward Stuart (Secker & Warburg)
• 1978 Memoirs of a Victorian Gentleman: William Makepeace Thackeray (Secker & Warburg)
• 1984 Significant Sisters: the Grassroots of Active Feminism 1839–1939 (Secker & Warburg)
• 1988 Elizabeth Barrett Browning: a biography (Chatto & Windus)
• 1993 Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller (Chatto & Windus)
• 1997 Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: a Family and Their Times 1831–1931 (Chatto & Windus)
• 2001 Good Wives?: Mary, Fanny, Jennie & Me 1845–2001 (Chatto & Windus)
• 2004 'Du Maurier , Dame Daphne (1907–1989)', [entry in] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online ed.] (Oxford University Press)
• 2006 BP Portrait Award 2006: Catalogue of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery [ Introductory essay by Margaret Forster] (National Portrait Gallery) ISBN 1855143739
• 2006 'Character studies [on portraiture]', The Guardian, 10 June 2006 online version

Family memoirs/autobiography

• 1995 Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir (Viking)
• 1998 Precious Lives (Chatto & Windus)

Literary editions

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

Criticism and biography of Margaret Forster

• Bordelon, David, 'Margaret Forster', in Twentieth Century Literary Biographers (Dictionary of Literary Biography
  Dictionary of Literary Biography
  The Dictionary of Literary Biography is a specialist encyclopedia dedicated to literature. Published by Gale, the 375-volumes set covers a wide variety of literary topics, periods, and genres, with a focus on American and British literature....
  
  , Vol.155) (Deroit: 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)
• Greenstreet, Rosanna, 'My perfect weekend: Margaret Forster', The Times, 19 December 1992 [Interview]
• Jones, Nigel, 'Loss is more: an interview with Margaret Forster', Daily Mail, 31 August 2007 Online version
• 'Margaret Forster', in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol.149 (Detroit: Gale, 2002), pp 62–107
• 'Margaret Forster', in Contemporary British Novelists, ed. Nick Rennison (London: Routledge, 2005), pp.72–76, ISBN 0415217083
• Moseley, Merritt, 'Margaret Forster' in British and Irish Novelists since 1960 (Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol.271) (Deroit: Gale, 2003), pp. 139–155
• Patterson, Christina, 'A life less ordinary: Margaret Forster worries, after 30 books, that she loves writing too much', The Independent, 15 March 2003, 20-21 [Interview]
• Taylor, Annie, 'The difference a day made (14 May 1957) ...Margaret Forster was on a mission', The Guardian, 6 June 1996 [Interview]
• 'Margaret Forster: An Introduction' by Kathleen Jones, published by Northern Lights 2003 ISBN 0905404920

External links

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