AN NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINAL
Elizabeth Taylor is finally beginning to gain the recognition due to her as one of the best English writers of the postwar period, prized and praised by Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel, among others. Inheriting Ivy Compton-Burnett's uncanny sensitivity to the terrifying undercurrents that swirl beneath the apparent calm of respectable family life while showing a deep sympathy of her own for human loneliness, Taylor depicted dislocation with the unflinching presence of mind of Graham Greene. But for Taylor, unlike Greene, dislocation began not in distant climes but right at home. It is in the living room, playroom, and bedroom that Taylor stages her unforgettable dramas of alienation and impossible desire.
Taylor's stories, many of which originally appeared in The New Yorker, are her central achievement. Here are self-improving spinsters and gossiping girls, war orphans and wallflowers, honeymooners and barmaids, mistresses and murderers. Margaret Drabble's new selection reveals a writer whose wide sympathies and restless curiosity are matched by a steely penetration into the human heart and mind.
AN NYRB CLASSICS ORIGINAL
Elizabeth Taylor is finally beginning to gain the recognition due to her as one of the best English writers of the postwar period, prized and praised by Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel, among others. Inheriting Ivy Compton-Burnett's uncanny sensitivity to the terrifying undercurrents that swirl beneath the apparent calm of respectable family life while showing a deep sympathy of her own for human loneliness, Taylor depicted dislocation with the unflinching presence of mind of Graham Greene. But for Taylor, unlike Greene, dislocation began not in distant climes but right at home. It is in the living room, playroom, and bedroom that Taylor stages her unforgettable dramas of alienation and impossible desire.
Taylor's stories, many of which originally appeared in The New Yorker, are her central achievement. Here are self-improving spinsters and gossiping girls, war orphans and wallflowers, honeymooners and barmaids, mistresses and murderers. Margaret Drabble's new selection reveals a writer whose wide sympathies and restless curiosity are matched by a steely penetration into the human heart and mind.
Elizabeth Taylor (1912–1975) was born into a middle-class
family in Berkshire, England. She held a variety of positions,
including librarian and governess, before marrying a businessman in
1936. Nine years later, her first novel, At Mrs. Lippincote’s,
appeared. She would go on to publish eleven more novels, including
Angel and A Game of Hide and Seek (both available as NYRB
Classics), four collections of short stories (many of which
originally appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and other
magazines), and a children’s book, Mossy Trotter, while living with
her husband and two children in Buckinghamshire. Long
championed by Ivy Compton-Burnett, Barbara Pym, Robert
Liddell, Kingsley Amis, and Elizabeth Jane Howard, Taylor’s novels
and stories have been the basis for a number of films, including
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005), starring Joan Plowright, and
François Ozon’s Angel (2007).
Margaret Drabble is the author of eighteen novels, including
The Needle’s Eye, The Peppered Moth, The Seven Sisters, The Sea
Lady, and most recently, The Pure Gold Baby. Among her works of
nonfiction are biographies of Arnold Bennett and Angus Wilson. She
has edited the fifth and sixth editions of the Oxford Companion to
World Literature and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2008.
“For years, Taylor’s short stories—painfully smart,
hilarious, dark—have been entirely out of print in the United
States.” —Britt Peterson, The New Republic
“I find the writing of Elizabeth Taylor fresh, and inevitably
hitting the right nail on the head in every sentence. In fact I
find her so unbelievably good, kind, stimulating, catty and subtle
that I forget I’m a critic.” —John Betjeman
“Passion at cross-purposes with respectability—passion at
cross-purposes, even, with happiness—is a great theme in
Taylor’s fiction.” —Caleb Crain
"Taylor’s vulnerable characters are simultaneously touching and
heartbreaking." —Publishers Weekly starred review
“The short story [is] a form in which Taylor, a gimlet-eyed
miniaturist, fully exploited her talents.” —Benjamin Schwarz, The
Atlantic
“Taylor’s stories, like her novels, are also filled with
interesting and original ideas about life that are presented with
almost no emphasis, ideas that other novelists would practically
underscore and print in bold.” —Financial Times
"Taylor was ahead of her time in so many ways. She wrote about
women’s lives with a keen eye for what goes on beneath the surface
and behind the curtains.” —The Booklist Reader
“In all the stories there is a peculiarly satisfying mixture of wit
and generosity. Their human depth is such that they can be read
again and again.” —Margaret Drabble
“Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been
some turning point in one’s own experience.” —Elizabeth Bowen
“There is a deceptive smoothness in her tone, or tone of voice, as
in that of Evelyn Waugh; not a far-fetched comparison, for in the
work of both writers the funny and the appalling lie side by side
in close amity.” —Kingsley Amis
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