Margaret Drabble

Author of The Red Queen

61+ Works 12,835 Members 272 Reviews 41 Favorited

About the Author

Margaret Drabble was born on June 5, 1939 in Sheffield, England. She attended The Mount School in York and Newnham College, Cambridge University. After graduation, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford during which time she understudied for Vanessa Redgrave. She is a novelist, show more critic, and the editor of the fifth edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Her works include A Summer Bird Cage; The Millstone, which won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in 1966; Jerusalem the Golden, which won James Tait Black Prize in 1967; and The Witch of Exmoor. She also received the E. M. Forster award and was awarded a Society of Authors Travelling Fellowship in the 1960s and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1980. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the names: M Drabble, ed. Drabble, Drabble (M), Margret Drabble, Margaret Drabble, Margaret Drabble, Margaret Drabble ed., Ed. Margaret Drabble, DRABBLE MARGARET (ED, Magaret Drabble (ed.), Margaret. ed. DRABBLE, editor Margaret Drabble, Margaret Drabble Editor, Edited by Margaret Drabble, Margaret. Edited by. Drabble, Маргарет Дрэббл, Margaret Drabble editor & reviser, Jenny (editor) Margaret; Stringer Drabble

Series

The Headleand Trilogy

Literature in Perspective

Works by Margaret Drabble

Popular Recent

The Red Queen (2004) 942 copies

The Millstone (1965) 933 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985) — Editor — 820 copies

The Radiant Way (1987) 819 copies

The Peppered Moth (2000) 719 copies

The Seven Sisters (2002) 702 copies

The Witch of Exmoor (1996) 452 copies

The Needle's Eye (1972) 452 copies

A Natural Curiosity (1989) 445 copies

The Ice Age (1977) 427 copies

The Dark Flood Rises (2016) 411 copies

A Summer Bird-cage (1963) 402 copies

The Waterfall (1969) 395 copies

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (1990) — Editor — 387 copies

The Sea Lady (2006) 384 copies

The Realms of Gold (1975) 383 copies

The Gates of Ivory (1991) 376 copies

Jerusalem the Golden (1967) 373 copies

The Middle Ground (1980) 349 copies

The Garrick Year (1964) 336 copies

The Pure Gold Baby (2013) 291 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Fifth Edition (1985) 263 copies

The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws (2009) 259 copies

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman: Complete Short Stories (2011) 241 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature 183 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature (2000) 180 copies

A Writer's Britain: Landscape in Literature (1979) 160 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature 150 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature (2006) 141 copies

The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1995) 117 copies

Arnold Bennett: A Biography (1974) 91 copies

At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies' Pond (2019) 68 copies

Angus Wilson: A Biography (1995) 65 copies

The Gifts of War (2011) 22 copies

The Forward Book of Poetry 1994 (1993) 20 copies

For Queen and country: Britain in the Victorian age (1978) 16 copies

Wordsworth (1966) 11 copies

The Genius of Thomas Hardy (1976) 11 copies

Great Poets of the 20th Century: Sylvia Plath (2008) — Foreword — 9 copies

London Consequences (1972) 6 copies

The Plays of Margaret Drabble: A Critical Edition (2018) 3 copies

The Romantic Poets: William Wordsworth (2010) 2 copies

The May Anthology: The Oxford and Cambridge Short Story Anthology 1 copy

Twentieth Century Classics: Catalogue 1994-5 1 copy

Wordsworth's butter knife : an essay 1 copy

Mühlstein 1 copy

Crossing the Alps 1 copy

Prize-winning literature, winners of British literary prizes since 1984. 1 copy

'A Dandy Style' in The Threepenny Review, winter 2001 1 copy

Sığ Sularda 1 copy

Safe as Houses (1990) 1 copy

Dizionario Oxford della letteratura inglese (1996) 1 copy

Hassan's Tower 1 copy

Stækkede vinger (2001) 1 copy

Loistava tilaisuus 1 copy

La Mer toujours recommencée (2008) 1 copy

Tornado Pratt 1 copy

Drabble, Margaret Archive 1 copy

Mortifications (ROBERTSON) 1 copy

The Gimlet Eye (of [Margaret Drabble]) 1 copy

Le Milieu de la Vie 1 copy

Work Explorer

Associated Works

Pride and Prejudice (1813) — Introduction, some editions — 81,210 copies

Sense and Sensibility (1811) — Introduction, some editions — 38,387 copies

Emma (1815) — Introduction, some editions — 38,264 copies

Persuasion (1817) — Introduction, some editions — 28,882 copies

Mansfield Park (1814) — Introduction, some editions — 22,658 copies

Northanger Abbey (1817) — Introduction, some editions — 21,790 copies

20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1870) — Introduction, some editions — 18,556 copies

Middlemarch (1871) — Introduction, some editions — 17,832 copies

To the Lighthouse (1927) — Editor, some editions — 17,727 copies

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) — Introduction, some editions — 11,435 copies

Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon (1925) — Editor, some editions; Introduction, some editions — 1,984 copies

Ann Veronica (1909) — Introduction, some editions — 491 copies

Owls Do Cry (1957) — Introduction, some editions — 465 copies

Women & Fiction: Short Stories By and About Women (1975) — Contributor — 367 copies

Stories (1978) — Introduction — 361 copies

Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame (2003) — Contributor — 280 copies

Cocksure (1968) — Afterword, some editions — 279 copies

The Juniper Tree (1985) — Foreword, some editions — 274 copies

Erotica: Women's Writing from Sappho to Margaret Atwood (1990) — Contributor — 168 copies

Poor Cow (1967) — Introduction, some editions — 149 copies

The Penguin Book of Women's Humour (1996) — Contributor — 119 copies

You'll Enjoy It When You Get There: The Stories of Elizabeth Taylor (New York Review Books Classics) (2014) — Editor — 118 copies

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture [cat. exp., Royal Academy of Arts, London; 21 Jan - 09 April 2012, Guggenheim Museum,… (2012) — Contributor — 106 copies

The Penguin Book of Modern Women's Short Stories (1990) — Contributor — 100 copies

Wuthering Heights and Poems (1900) — Introduction, some editions — 97 copies

Living with Shakespeare: Essays by Writers, Actors, and Directors (2013) — Contributor — 87 copies

Choice Words: Writers on Abortion (2020) — Contributor — 75 copies

Simonetta Perkins (1925) — Foreword, some editions — 51 copies

The Guardian Review Book of Short Stories (2011) — Author — 50 copies

The Undiscovered Country (1968) — Foreword, some editions — 29 copies

Into the Widening World: International Coming-of-Age Stories (1995) — Contributor — 28 copies

The Shakespeare circle : an alternative biography (2015) — Contributor — 26 copies

Slightly Foxed 71: Jocelin's Folly (2021) — Contributor — 22 copies

Slightly Foxed 59: Manhattan Moments (2018) — Contributor — 19 copies

Slightly Foxed 49: Murder at the Majestic (2016) — Contributor — 18 copies

Slightly Foxed 66: Underwater Heaven (2020) — Contributor — 18 copies

Collision: Stories From the Science of CERN (2023) — Contributor — 11 copies

The Bedside 'Guardian' 15: A Selection from The Guardian 1965-1966 (1966) — Contributor — 7 copies

A Love Letter to Europe: An Outpouring of Sadness and Hope (2019) — Contributor — 5 copies

A Day to Remember to Forget (1971) — Introduction, some editions — 3 copies

Birds of Prey: Seven Sardonic Stories (2010) — Introduction — 2 copies

Tagged

1001 (929) 1001 books (1,004) 19th century (6,309) 19th century literature (765) audiobook (695) Austen (2,723) British (3,820) British literature (3,889) classic (11,579) classic fiction (994) classic literature (1,514) classics (12,465) ebook (1,431) England (4,372) English (1,842) English literature (4,026) family (858) favorite (681) favorites (898) fiction (29,996) historical (903) historical fiction (1,256) Jane Austen (3,807) Kindle (1,423) literature (6,429) love (1,197) marriage (949) novel (5,560) own (1,580) owned (666) read (3,176) Regency (2,033) Roman (623) romance (7,346) science fiction (1,508) to-read (9,485) UK (613) unread (1,283) Victorian (935) women (1,126)

Common Knowledge

Legal name: Holroyd, Dame Margaret Drabble
Birthdate: 1939-06-05
Gender: female
Nationality: UK
Country (for map): England, UK
Birthplace: Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, UK
Places of residence: Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, UK
York, Yorkshire, England, UK
London, England, UK
Education: The Mount, York
University of Cambridge (Newnham College)
Occupations: novelist
critic
biographer
Relationships: Holroyd, Michael (husband)
Byatt, A. S. (sister)
Langdon, Helen (sister)
Swift, Joe (son)
Swift, Rebecca (1) (daughter)
Organizations: Royal Shakespeare Company (1960-1963)
Booktrust
American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary, Literature, 2002)
Awards and honors: Order of the British Empire (Commander ∙ 1980)
DLitt (hc ∙ University of Cambridge ∙ 2006)
E. M. Forster Award (1973)
Order of the British Empire (Dame Commander ∙ 2008)
Fellow, Royal Society of Literature
Agent: PFD, Drury House
Short biography: MARGARET DRABBLE is the author of The Sea Lady, The Seven Sisters, The Peppered Moth, and The Needle's Eye, among other novels. For her contributions to contemporary English literature, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2008.

Drabble has famously been engaged in a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt, over the alleged appropriation of a family tea-set in one of her novels. The pair seldom see each other and each does not read the books of the other.

Members

Discussions

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE MAY 2015 - MARGARET DRABBLE AND MARTIN AMIS in 75 Books Challenge for 2015 (June 2015)

Reviews

The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with… by Margaret Drabble

I wanted to like this book. It's an interesting idea: memoir, interleaved with a history of the jigsaw and related pastimes. A shared love of jigsaws drew Drabble closer to her great-aunt Phyllis.

Each part of the book is interesting in its own right: the story of Phyllis and Margaret, and their family; the discursive discussions on jigsaw history, and other pursuits that seem to tick some of the same boxes - mosaic making for instance. But it feels a lot longer than it should have been, as though Drabble hasn't been able to bear to edit out any nugget from her research.

I was determined to reach the end, and was relieved when I finally did.… (more)

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Margaret09 | 14 other reviews | Apr 15, 2024 |

The Middle Ground by Margaret Drabble

I read to page 50 and it just wasn't holding my attention, so I tossed it.

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Fliss88 | 3 other reviews | Apr 11, 2024 |

The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble

MD takes on aging and death - dense and fascinating.

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nanrobinson45 | 21 other reviews | Mar 20, 2024 |

The Dark Flood Rises: A Novel by Margaret Drabble

Just not for me. Rumination on aging, as reflected on by the primary and a number of secondary characters. I found the characters and their context simply didn't engage me in a meaningful way. Nothing particularly insightful, instructive or entertaining about the act of aging.

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vscauzzo | 21 other reviews | Jan 29, 2024 |

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