Margaret Forster (25 May 1938 – 8 February 2016) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic, best known for the 1965 novel Georgy Girl, made into a successful film of the same name, which inspired a hit song by The Seekers. Other successes were a 2003 novel, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and her memoirs Hidden Lives and Precious Lives.

Early life and education

Forster was born in the Raffles council estate in Carlisle, England. Her father, Arthur Forster, was a mechanic or factory fitter, her mother, Lilian (née Hind), a housewife who had worked as a clerk or secretary before her marriage.

The publisher Carmen Callil sees as Forster's best work Lady's Maid (1990), a historical novel about Elizabeth Barrett Browning viewed through the eyes of her maid.

Forster also wrote fictionalised biographies of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1978) Significant Sisters (1984) chronicled the growing feminist movement through the lives of eight pioneering British and American women: Caroline Norton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Florence Nightingale, Emily Davies, Josephine Butler, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman. Good Wives (2001) surveyed contemporary and historical women married to famous men, including Mary Livingstone, Fanny Stevenson, Jennie Lee and herself. The sequel, Precious Lives, tackled Forster's father, whom she reportedly disliked. She served as a Booker Prize judge in 1980. She was the main non-fiction reviewer for the Evening Standard (1977–1980).

Awards

Forster was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975. and the Fawcett Society Book Prize (1994). Precious Lives won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography (1999).

She led a somewhat reclusive life, often refusing to attend book signings and other publicity events. and she died in February 2016, aged 77.

Legacy

The British Library acquired the Margaret Forster Archive in March 2018, which consists of material relating to her works, professional and private correspondence, and personal papers. It includes manuscripts and typescript drafts of most of her published work, and some personal diaries.

Selected works

;Novels

  • Dames' Delight (Jonathan Cape, 1964)
  • The Bogeyman (Secker & Warburg, 1965)
  • Georgy Girl (Secker & Warburg, 1965)
  • The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff (Secker & Warburg, 1967)
  • The Park (Secker & Warburg, 1968)
  • Miss Owen-Owen is at Home (Secker & Warburg, 1969)
  • Fenella Phizackerley (Secker & Warburg, 1970)
  • Mr Bone's Retreat (Secker & Warburg, 1971)
  • The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury (Secker & Warburg, 1974)
  • Mother Can You Hear Me? (Secker & Warburg, 1979)
  • The Bride of Lowther Fell: a Romance (Secker & Warburg, 1980)
  • Marital Rites (Secker & Warburg, 1981)
  • Private Papers (Chatto & Windus, 1986)
  • Have the Men Had Enough? (Chatto & Windus, 1989)
  • Lady's Maid (Chatto & Windus, 1990)
  • The Battle for Christabel (Chatto & Windus, 1991)
  • Mother's Boys (Chatto & Windus, 1994)
  • Shadow Baby (Chatto & Windus, 1996)
  • The Memory Box (Chatto & Windus, 1999)
  • Diary of an Ordinary Woman 1914–1995 (Chatto & Windus, 2003)
  • Is There Anything You Want? (Chatto & Windus, 2005)
  • Keeping the World Away (Chatto & Windus, 2006)
  • Over (Chatto & Windus, 2007)
  • Isa and May (Chatto & Windus, 2010)
  • The Unknown Bridesmaid (Chatto & Windus, 2013)
  • How to Measure a Cow (Chatto & Windus, 2016)

;Biography and history

  • The Rash Adventurer: The Rise and Fall of Charles Edward Stuart (Secker & Warburg, 1973)
  • Memoirs of a Victorian Gentleman: William Makepeace Thackeray (Secker & Warburg, 1978)
  • Significant Sisters: The Grassroots of Active Feminism 1839–1939 (Secker & Warburg, 1984)
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography (Chatto & Windus, 1988)
  • Daphne du Maurier (Chatto & Windus, 1993)
  • Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: A Family and Their Times 1831–1931 (Chatto & Windus, 1997)
  • Good Wives?: Mary, Fanny, Jennie & Me 1845–2001 (Chatto & Windus, 2001)
  • Keeping the World Away (Chatto & Windus, 2006)

;Family memoirs and autobiography

  • Hidden Lives: A Family Memoir (Viking, 1995)
  • Precious Lives (Chatto & Windus, 1998)
  • My Life in Houses (Chatto & Windus, 2014)
  • Diary of an Ordinary Schoolgirl (Chatto & Windus, 2017)

;Literary editions

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

References

Further reading

  • David Bordelon, "Margaret Forster", in Twentieth Century Literary Biographers (Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 155) (Detroit: 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)
  • Rosanna Greenstreet, "My perfect weekend: Margaret Forster", The Times, 19 December 1992 [Interview]
  • "Margaret Forster'", Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 149 (Detroit: Gale, 2002), pp. 62–107
  • "Margaret Forster", Contemporary British Novelists, ed. Nick Rennison (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 72–76,
  • Merritt Moseley, "Margaret Forster", British and Irish Novelists since 1960 (Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 271, Detroit: Gale, 2003), pp. 139–155
  • Christina Patterson, "A life less ordinary: Margaret Forster worries, after 30 books, that she loves writing too much", The Independent, 15 March 2003, pp. 20–21 [Interview]
  • Annie Taylor, "The difference a day made (14 May 1957)... Margaret Forster was on a mission", The Guardian, 6 June 1996 [Interview]
  • Kathleen Jones Margaret Forster: An Introduction (Northern Lights; 2003, )
  • Kathleen Jones, Margaret Forster: A Life in Books (The Book Mill; 2012, )
  • Lindsay, Cora, 'Critical perspective (and biog & bibliog. on Margaret Forster)' Contemporary Writers (British Council)
  • Margaret Forster at Random House (publisher's website)
  • Margaret Forster discusses her latest book Isa and May with The Interview Online