Brigid Brophy (1929-1995) was an acclaimed novelist, essayist, critic and campaigner. Her fiction included Hackenfeller's Ape (1953), The King of a Rainy Country (1956), Flesh (1962), The Finishing Touch (1963), The Snow Ball (1964), In Transit (1969), The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl (1971) and Palace without Chairs (1978). Her non-fiction included Black Ship to Hell (1962), Mozart the Dramatist (1964), two books about Aubrey Beardsley - Black and White (1968) and Beardsley and His World (1976), and Prancing Novelist: In Praise Of Ronald Firbank (1973). In 1954 she married the art historian Michael Levey (later the director of the British National Gallery from 1973-1987, knighted in 1981). The couple had one daughter, Kate. Brophy was a noted campaigner on several platforms, in particular her fight to establish an authors' Public Lending Right and her vice-presidency of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.
Brigid Brophy (1929-1995) was an acclaimed novelist, essayist, critic and campaigner. Her fiction included Hackenfeller's Ape (1953), The King of a Rainy Country (1956), Flesh (1962), The Finishing Touch (1963), The Snow Ball (1964), In Transit (1969), The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl (1971) and Palace without Chairs (1978). Her non-fiction included Black Ship to Hell (1962), Mozart the Dramatist (1964), two books about Aubrey Beardsley - Black and White (1968) and Beardsley and His World (1976), and Prancing Novelist: In Praise Of Ronald Firbank (1973). In 1954 she married the art historian Michael Levey (later the director of the British National Gallery from 1973-1987, knighted in 1981). The couple had one daughter, Kate. Brophy was a noted campaigner on several platforms, in particular her fight to establish an authors' Public Lending Right and her vice-presidency of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.
Novelist, biographer, and critic Brigid Brophy wrote nine works of fiction, including The King of a Rainy Country and In Transit. She also wrote a number of works of nonfiction, which included books on Aubrey Beardsley and Mozart, as well as the infamous Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without.
One of the strangest and wittiest British writers of the past half century... -- Terry Castle Atheist, vegetarian, socialist; novelist and short-story writer; humanist; biographer; playwright... most loyal of friends; reverer of Jane Austen; lover of Italy; Mozart adorer... smoker of cigarettes in a chic holder and painter of her fingernails purple; mother, grandmother, wife; feminist; lover of men and women; Brigid Brophy was above all an intellectual, which British (although she was Irish) authors aren't supposed to be. -- Giles Gorden The Independent
![]() |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
![]() |