She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. They lived in London (when he was at the House of Commons) and in summer on an island in Inverness-shire, Scotland, owned by him. I don't like it, but this afternoon I've told myself I am going to …
[10] They had six children: three sons, Benjamin, Damian, and Orlando; and three daughters, Rebecca, Flora, and Natasha (Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni), who are all also writers and biographers. [4][24], Lady Antonia Fraser's uncatalogued papers (relating to her "Early Writing," "Fiction," and "Non-Fiction") are on loan at the British Library (BL); there is a registry of this archive accessible via the British Library Manuscripts Catalogue online search facility, listing 19 boxes of materials.
[14][17], Two of the most recent of her thirteen non-fiction books are Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001, 2002), which has been made into the film Marie Antoinette (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola, with Kirsten Dunst in the title role, and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).[12]. [1], When she was a teenager,[5] like all her siblings she became a convert to the Catholic Church after the conversion of her parents. Following Pinter's death on 24 December 2008. [1][8] In 1980, after Merchant signed divorce papers, Fraser and Pinter married. In the meantime she edited a series of writings: Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (1975), Scottish Love Poems (1975), Love Letters: An Anthology (1976), Heroes and Heroines (1980), Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry (1981), and Oxford and Oxfordshire in Verse (1982). Fraser followed The Weaker Vessel with the mysteries Oxford Blood (1985), Jemima Shore's First Case (1986), and Your Royal Hostage (1987); Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens, in the United States The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case (1990); and The Wives of Henry VIII (1992). She is represented by Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency, where her agent is Jonathan Lloyd, the Agency's CEO. She published several juvenile items and A History of Toys (1966) before her major work, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1969, which won the J. T. Black Prize for biography. Terms of Use If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.
"[21] Such speculation does not seem to take account of the fact that Pinter's official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, who is generally quite sympathetic to Pinter ("agreeable"), announced in January 2009 that a third edition of his book Harold Pinter (2nd ed., 2007) is being rushed to press by Faber and that it "will take account of the international response to Pinter's death.
88880), the Lady Antonia Fraser Archive is still Loan No. These novels in their settings are reminiscent of scenes she knew from her own life—a convent and a Scottish island, the royalists, and even an M.P., her first husband. [15], More recently, Fraser published The Warrior Queens, the story of various military royal women since the days of Boadicea and Cleopatra.
Marie Antoinette is published by Orion.
Her heroine, Jemima Shore, a television reporter, is intelligent and fashionable. A more recent Fraser history is Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, an account of the 1605 conspiracy led by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament with King James I inside. "[5] She was educated at St Mary's School, Ascot, the Dragon School, Oxford[1][7] and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; the last was also her mother's alma mater. pt:Antonia Fraser
From 1956 until their divorce in 1977, she was married to Sir Hugh Fraser (1918-1984), a descendant of Scottish aristocracy 14 years her senior and a Conservative Unionist MP in the House of Commons (sitting for Stafford), who was a friend of the American Kennedy family. She considers that it is a very good feminist title. Her mother, Lady Longford, had won the same prize five years before with a biography of Queen Victoria (1964). [5][10][11], In 1975 Antonia Fraser began an affair with playwright Harold Pinter, who was then married to the actress Vivien Merchant. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.” Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Women's status was set back after his death. He was 15 years her senior. Please provide me with your latest book news, views and details of Waterstones’ special offers. 110A (renumbered after its acquisition and cataloguing: Additional Manuscripts Collection No.
[8] Antonia Fraser has 18 grandchildren. [25] Papers by and relating to Lady Antonia Fraser are also catalogued as part of the Harold Pinter Archive, which is part of its permanent collection of Additional Manuscripts. Already she was living with Harold Pinter, the playwright, whom she married in 1980. The novel is set in a convent and the hysterical nuns are brought under control by Jemima with a
[23] On 9 June 2009, the The Guardian stated that this memoir of a love affair and marriage would be published in January 2010. and a princess. Encyclopedia of World Biography. She was a contestant on the BBC Radio 4 panel game My Word!. [1][2][3][4], Born Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham on 27 August 1932, Antonia Fraser is the daughter of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Privacy Policy. 110), with the Harold Pinter Archive before its permanent acquisition being numbered Loan No. Fraser is the first-born of the eight children of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. [1][6] Her "maternal grandparents were Unitarians – a non-conformist faith with a strong emphasis on social reform ..."; in response to criticism of her writing about Oliver Cromwell, she has said: "I have no Catholic blood"; before his own conversion in his thirties following a nervous breakdown in the Army, as she explains, "my father was Protestant Church of Ireland, and my mother was Unitarian up to the age of 20 when she abandoned it. It was based on primary documents rather than on other work by historians, and her organization is accomplished. "I suppose one's vanity is pleased by it, but if I could be born again with more beauty or more brains, I'd take the brains," Fraser is quoted in an article by Polly Samson appearing in Harper's Bazaar, November 1992, "Once you are called a beauty, then you are either an ex-beauty, a fading beauty, or 'still surprisingly beautiful.' Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry, The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case.
He was also a famed public crusader and writer. [18], She serves as a judge for the Enid McLeod Literary Prize, awarded by the Franco-British Society, previously winning that prize for her biography Marie Antoinette (2001). Mother and daughter proceeded to carve up English history between them: Lady Longford taking the 19th century, Lady Antonia taking the 17th century. [1][3][12], Correcting those who notice only her physical beauty—remarked upon both in her youth and well into her seventh decade—some commentators stress that, "more than just a pretty face", she is an accomplished historian and "an intellectual". sangfroid style and frank manner. Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot.
The earlier books, from the historian's point of view, were more researched than the later works, may be because she was thinking of becoming a mystery novelist. [16], She chronicled the life and times of Charles II in a well-reviewed 1979 eponymous biography. For items by and relating to Antonia Fraser held in the Manuscripts Collections of the British Library, one uses the "Descriptions search" facility for ", 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, 2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict/merger-proposal, Prise de Jérusalem par Hérode le Grand.jpg, Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature, The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library, "Author Profiles: Introducing Lady Antonia Fraser". Lord Weidenfeld was a family friend and had Lady Antonia editing the expletives from Saul Bellow's The Adventure of Augie March for the British market. More academic in character was her later book, The Weaker Vessel (1984), a volume about 17th-century women in England. 110B. Her first major work, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, was Mary, Queen of Scots (1969), which was followed by several other biographies, including Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973).
She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. They lived in London (when he was at the House of Commons) and in summer on an island in Inverness-shire, Scotland, owned by him. I don't like it, but this afternoon I've told myself I am going to …
[10] They had six children: three sons, Benjamin, Damian, and Orlando; and three daughters, Rebecca, Flora, and Natasha (Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni), who are all also writers and biographers. [4][24], Lady Antonia Fraser's uncatalogued papers (relating to her "Early Writing," "Fiction," and "Non-Fiction") are on loan at the British Library (BL); there is a registry of this archive accessible via the British Library Manuscripts Catalogue online search facility, listing 19 boxes of materials.
[14][17], Two of the most recent of her thirteen non-fiction books are Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001, 2002), which has been made into the film Marie Antoinette (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola, with Kirsten Dunst in the title role, and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).[12]. [1], When she was a teenager,[5] like all her siblings she became a convert to the Catholic Church after the conversion of her parents. Following Pinter's death on 24 December 2008. [1][8] In 1980, after Merchant signed divorce papers, Fraser and Pinter married. In the meantime she edited a series of writings: Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (1975), Scottish Love Poems (1975), Love Letters: An Anthology (1976), Heroes and Heroines (1980), Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry (1981), and Oxford and Oxfordshire in Verse (1982). Fraser followed The Weaker Vessel with the mysteries Oxford Blood (1985), Jemima Shore's First Case (1986), and Your Royal Hostage (1987); Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens, in the United States The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case (1990); and The Wives of Henry VIII (1992). She is represented by Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency, where her agent is Jonathan Lloyd, the Agency's CEO. She published several juvenile items and A History of Toys (1966) before her major work, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1969, which won the J. T. Black Prize for biography. Terms of Use If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.
"[21] Such speculation does not seem to take account of the fact that Pinter's official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, who is generally quite sympathetic to Pinter ("agreeable"), announced in January 2009 that a third edition of his book Harold Pinter (2nd ed., 2007) is being rushed to press by Faber and that it "will take account of the international response to Pinter's death.
88880), the Lady Antonia Fraser Archive is still Loan No. These novels in their settings are reminiscent of scenes she knew from her own life—a convent and a Scottish island, the royalists, and even an M.P., her first husband. [15], More recently, Fraser published The Warrior Queens, the story of various military royal women since the days of Boadicea and Cleopatra.
Marie Antoinette is published by Orion.
Her heroine, Jemima Shore, a television reporter, is intelligent and fashionable. A more recent Fraser history is Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, an account of the 1605 conspiracy led by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament with King James I inside. "[5] She was educated at St Mary's School, Ascot, the Dragon School, Oxford[1][7] and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; the last was also her mother's alma mater. pt:Antonia Fraser
From 1956 until their divorce in 1977, she was married to Sir Hugh Fraser (1918-1984), a descendant of Scottish aristocracy 14 years her senior and a Conservative Unionist MP in the House of Commons (sitting for Stafford), who was a friend of the American Kennedy family. She considers that it is a very good feminist title. Her mother, Lady Longford, had won the same prize five years before with a biography of Queen Victoria (1964). [5][10][11], In 1975 Antonia Fraser began an affair with playwright Harold Pinter, who was then married to the actress Vivien Merchant. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.” Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Women's status was set back after his death. He was 15 years her senior. Please provide me with your latest book news, views and details of Waterstones’ special offers. 110A (renumbered after its acquisition and cataloguing: Additional Manuscripts Collection No.
[8] Antonia Fraser has 18 grandchildren. [25] Papers by and relating to Lady Antonia Fraser are also catalogued as part of the Harold Pinter Archive, which is part of its permanent collection of Additional Manuscripts. Already she was living with Harold Pinter, the playwright, whom she married in 1980. The novel is set in a convent and the hysterical nuns are brought under control by Jemima with a
[23] On 9 June 2009, the The Guardian stated that this memoir of a love affair and marriage would be published in January 2010. and a princess. Encyclopedia of World Biography. She was a contestant on the BBC Radio 4 panel game My Word!. [1][2][3][4], Born Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham on 27 August 1932, Antonia Fraser is the daughter of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Privacy Policy. 110), with the Harold Pinter Archive before its permanent acquisition being numbered Loan No. Fraser is the first-born of the eight children of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. [1][6] Her "maternal grandparents were Unitarians – a non-conformist faith with a strong emphasis on social reform ..."; in response to criticism of her writing about Oliver Cromwell, she has said: "I have no Catholic blood"; before his own conversion in his thirties following a nervous breakdown in the Army, as she explains, "my father was Protestant Church of Ireland, and my mother was Unitarian up to the age of 20 when she abandoned it. It was based on primary documents rather than on other work by historians, and her organization is accomplished. "I suppose one's vanity is pleased by it, but if I could be born again with more beauty or more brains, I'd take the brains," Fraser is quoted in an article by Polly Samson appearing in Harper's Bazaar, November 1992, "Once you are called a beauty, then you are either an ex-beauty, a fading beauty, or 'still surprisingly beautiful.' Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry, The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case.
He was also a famed public crusader and writer. [18], She serves as a judge for the Enid McLeod Literary Prize, awarded by the Franco-British Society, previously winning that prize for her biography Marie Antoinette (2001). Mother and daughter proceeded to carve up English history between them: Lady Longford taking the 19th century, Lady Antonia taking the 17th century. [1][3][12], Correcting those who notice only her physical beauty—remarked upon both in her youth and well into her seventh decade—some commentators stress that, "more than just a pretty face", she is an accomplished historian and "an intellectual". sangfroid style and frank manner. Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot.
The earlier books, from the historian's point of view, were more researched than the later works, may be because she was thinking of becoming a mystery novelist. [16], She chronicled the life and times of Charles II in a well-reviewed 1979 eponymous biography. For items by and relating to Antonia Fraser held in the Manuscripts Collections of the British Library, one uses the "Descriptions search" facility for ", 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, 2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict/merger-proposal, Prise de Jérusalem par Hérode le Grand.jpg, Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature, The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library, "Author Profiles: Introducing Lady Antonia Fraser". Lord Weidenfeld was a family friend and had Lady Antonia editing the expletives from Saul Bellow's The Adventure of Augie March for the British market. More academic in character was her later book, The Weaker Vessel (1984), a volume about 17th-century women in England. 110B. Her first major work, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, was Mary, Queen of Scots (1969), which was followed by several other biographies, including Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973).
She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. They lived in London (when he was at the House of Commons) and in summer on an island in Inverness-shire, Scotland, owned by him. I don't like it, but this afternoon I've told myself I am going to …
[10] They had six children: three sons, Benjamin, Damian, and Orlando; and three daughters, Rebecca, Flora, and Natasha (Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni), who are all also writers and biographers. [4][24], Lady Antonia Fraser's uncatalogued papers (relating to her "Early Writing," "Fiction," and "Non-Fiction") are on loan at the British Library (BL); there is a registry of this archive accessible via the British Library Manuscripts Catalogue online search facility, listing 19 boxes of materials.
[14][17], Two of the most recent of her thirteen non-fiction books are Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001, 2002), which has been made into the film Marie Antoinette (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola, with Kirsten Dunst in the title role, and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).[12]. [1], When she was a teenager,[5] like all her siblings she became a convert to the Catholic Church after the conversion of her parents. Following Pinter's death on 24 December 2008. [1][8] In 1980, after Merchant signed divorce papers, Fraser and Pinter married. In the meantime she edited a series of writings: Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (1975), Scottish Love Poems (1975), Love Letters: An Anthology (1976), Heroes and Heroines (1980), Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry (1981), and Oxford and Oxfordshire in Verse (1982). Fraser followed The Weaker Vessel with the mysteries Oxford Blood (1985), Jemima Shore's First Case (1986), and Your Royal Hostage (1987); Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens, in the United States The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case (1990); and The Wives of Henry VIII (1992). She is represented by Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency, where her agent is Jonathan Lloyd, the Agency's CEO. She published several juvenile items and A History of Toys (1966) before her major work, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1969, which won the J. T. Black Prize for biography. Terms of Use If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.
"[21] Such speculation does not seem to take account of the fact that Pinter's official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, who is generally quite sympathetic to Pinter ("agreeable"), announced in January 2009 that a third edition of his book Harold Pinter (2nd ed., 2007) is being rushed to press by Faber and that it "will take account of the international response to Pinter's death.
88880), the Lady Antonia Fraser Archive is still Loan No. These novels in their settings are reminiscent of scenes she knew from her own life—a convent and a Scottish island, the royalists, and even an M.P., her first husband. [15], More recently, Fraser published The Warrior Queens, the story of various military royal women since the days of Boadicea and Cleopatra.
Marie Antoinette is published by Orion.
Her heroine, Jemima Shore, a television reporter, is intelligent and fashionable. A more recent Fraser history is Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, an account of the 1605 conspiracy led by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament with King James I inside. "[5] She was educated at St Mary's School, Ascot, the Dragon School, Oxford[1][7] and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; the last was also her mother's alma mater. pt:Antonia Fraser
From 1956 until their divorce in 1977, she was married to Sir Hugh Fraser (1918-1984), a descendant of Scottish aristocracy 14 years her senior and a Conservative Unionist MP in the House of Commons (sitting for Stafford), who was a friend of the American Kennedy family. She considers that it is a very good feminist title. Her mother, Lady Longford, had won the same prize five years before with a biography of Queen Victoria (1964). [5][10][11], In 1975 Antonia Fraser began an affair with playwright Harold Pinter, who was then married to the actress Vivien Merchant. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.” Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Women's status was set back after his death. He was 15 years her senior. Please provide me with your latest book news, views and details of Waterstones’ special offers. 110A (renumbered after its acquisition and cataloguing: Additional Manuscripts Collection No.
[8] Antonia Fraser has 18 grandchildren. [25] Papers by and relating to Lady Antonia Fraser are also catalogued as part of the Harold Pinter Archive, which is part of its permanent collection of Additional Manuscripts. Already she was living with Harold Pinter, the playwright, whom she married in 1980. The novel is set in a convent and the hysterical nuns are brought under control by Jemima with a
[23] On 9 June 2009, the The Guardian stated that this memoir of a love affair and marriage would be published in January 2010. and a princess. Encyclopedia of World Biography. She was a contestant on the BBC Radio 4 panel game My Word!. [1][2][3][4], Born Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham on 27 August 1932, Antonia Fraser is the daughter of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Privacy Policy. 110), with the Harold Pinter Archive before its permanent acquisition being numbered Loan No. Fraser is the first-born of the eight children of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. [1][6] Her "maternal grandparents were Unitarians – a non-conformist faith with a strong emphasis on social reform ..."; in response to criticism of her writing about Oliver Cromwell, she has said: "I have no Catholic blood"; before his own conversion in his thirties following a nervous breakdown in the Army, as she explains, "my father was Protestant Church of Ireland, and my mother was Unitarian up to the age of 20 when she abandoned it. It was based on primary documents rather than on other work by historians, and her organization is accomplished. "I suppose one's vanity is pleased by it, but if I could be born again with more beauty or more brains, I'd take the brains," Fraser is quoted in an article by Polly Samson appearing in Harper's Bazaar, November 1992, "Once you are called a beauty, then you are either an ex-beauty, a fading beauty, or 'still surprisingly beautiful.' Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry, The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case.
He was also a famed public crusader and writer. [18], She serves as a judge for the Enid McLeod Literary Prize, awarded by the Franco-British Society, previously winning that prize for her biography Marie Antoinette (2001). Mother and daughter proceeded to carve up English history between them: Lady Longford taking the 19th century, Lady Antonia taking the 17th century. [1][3][12], Correcting those who notice only her physical beauty—remarked upon both in her youth and well into her seventh decade—some commentators stress that, "more than just a pretty face", she is an accomplished historian and "an intellectual". sangfroid style and frank manner. Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot.
The earlier books, from the historian's point of view, were more researched than the later works, may be because she was thinking of becoming a mystery novelist. [16], She chronicled the life and times of Charles II in a well-reviewed 1979 eponymous biography. For items by and relating to Antonia Fraser held in the Manuscripts Collections of the British Library, one uses the "Descriptions search" facility for ", 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, 2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict/merger-proposal, Prise de Jérusalem par Hérode le Grand.jpg, Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature, The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library, "Author Profiles: Introducing Lady Antonia Fraser". Lord Weidenfeld was a family friend and had Lady Antonia editing the expletives from Saul Bellow's The Adventure of Augie March for the British market. More academic in character was her later book, The Weaker Vessel (1984), a volume about 17th-century women in England. 110B. Her first major work, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, was Mary, Queen of Scots (1969), which was followed by several other biographies, including Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973).
Her first husband died of cancer in 1984. [4][14] She won the Wolfson History Award in 1984 for The Weaker Vessel, a study of women's lives in 17th century England. As the daughter of an Earl, she is accorded the honorific courtesy title "Lady" and thus customarily addressed formally as "Lady Antonia".
She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. They lived in London (when he was at the House of Commons) and in summer on an island in Inverness-shire, Scotland, owned by him. I don't like it, but this afternoon I've told myself I am going to …
[10] They had six children: three sons, Benjamin, Damian, and Orlando; and three daughters, Rebecca, Flora, and Natasha (Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni), who are all also writers and biographers. [4][24], Lady Antonia Fraser's uncatalogued papers (relating to her "Early Writing," "Fiction," and "Non-Fiction") are on loan at the British Library (BL); there is a registry of this archive accessible via the British Library Manuscripts Catalogue online search facility, listing 19 boxes of materials.
[14][17], Two of the most recent of her thirteen non-fiction books are Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001, 2002), which has been made into the film Marie Antoinette (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola, with Kirsten Dunst in the title role, and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).[12]. [1], When she was a teenager,[5] like all her siblings she became a convert to the Catholic Church after the conversion of her parents. Following Pinter's death on 24 December 2008. [1][8] In 1980, after Merchant signed divorce papers, Fraser and Pinter married. In the meantime she edited a series of writings: Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (1975), Scottish Love Poems (1975), Love Letters: An Anthology (1976), Heroes and Heroines (1980), Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry (1981), and Oxford and Oxfordshire in Verse (1982). Fraser followed The Weaker Vessel with the mysteries Oxford Blood (1985), Jemima Shore's First Case (1986), and Your Royal Hostage (1987); Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens, in the United States The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case (1990); and The Wives of Henry VIII (1992). She is represented by Curtis Brown Literary and Talent Agency, where her agent is Jonathan Lloyd, the Agency's CEO. She published several juvenile items and A History of Toys (1966) before her major work, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1969, which won the J. T. Black Prize for biography. Terms of Use If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.
"[21] Such speculation does not seem to take account of the fact that Pinter's official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, who is generally quite sympathetic to Pinter ("agreeable"), announced in January 2009 that a third edition of his book Harold Pinter (2nd ed., 2007) is being rushed to press by Faber and that it "will take account of the international response to Pinter's death.
88880), the Lady Antonia Fraser Archive is still Loan No. These novels in their settings are reminiscent of scenes she knew from her own life—a convent and a Scottish island, the royalists, and even an M.P., her first husband. [15], More recently, Fraser published The Warrior Queens, the story of various military royal women since the days of Boadicea and Cleopatra.
Marie Antoinette is published by Orion.
Her heroine, Jemima Shore, a television reporter, is intelligent and fashionable. A more recent Fraser history is Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, an account of the 1605 conspiracy led by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament with King James I inside. "[5] She was educated at St Mary's School, Ascot, the Dragon School, Oxford[1][7] and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; the last was also her mother's alma mater. pt:Antonia Fraser
From 1956 until their divorce in 1977, she was married to Sir Hugh Fraser (1918-1984), a descendant of Scottish aristocracy 14 years her senior and a Conservative Unionist MP in the House of Commons (sitting for Stafford), who was a friend of the American Kennedy family. She considers that it is a very good feminist title. Her mother, Lady Longford, had won the same prize five years before with a biography of Queen Victoria (1964). [5][10][11], In 1975 Antonia Fraser began an affair with playwright Harold Pinter, who was then married to the actress Vivien Merchant. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.” Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. She was the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham (born 1905), a statesman who had several cabinet posts under Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Women's status was set back after his death. He was 15 years her senior. Please provide me with your latest book news, views and details of Waterstones’ special offers. 110A (renumbered after its acquisition and cataloguing: Additional Manuscripts Collection No.
[8] Antonia Fraser has 18 grandchildren. [25] Papers by and relating to Lady Antonia Fraser are also catalogued as part of the Harold Pinter Archive, which is part of its permanent collection of Additional Manuscripts. Already she was living with Harold Pinter, the playwright, whom she married in 1980. The novel is set in a convent and the hysterical nuns are brought under control by Jemima with a
[23] On 9 June 2009, the The Guardian stated that this memoir of a love affair and marriage would be published in January 2010. and a princess. Encyclopedia of World Biography. She was a contestant on the BBC Radio 4 panel game My Word!. [1][2][3][4], Born Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham on 27 August 1932, Antonia Fraser is the daughter of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Privacy Policy. 110), with the Harold Pinter Archive before its permanent acquisition being numbered Loan No. Fraser is the first-born of the eight children of Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905–2001), and his wife, Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, née Elizabeth Harman (1906–2002). Lady Antonia Fraser was born on August 27, 1932, in London, England. [1][6] Her "maternal grandparents were Unitarians – a non-conformist faith with a strong emphasis on social reform ..."; in response to criticism of her writing about Oliver Cromwell, she has said: "I have no Catholic blood"; before his own conversion in his thirties following a nervous breakdown in the Army, as she explains, "my father was Protestant Church of Ireland, and my mother was Unitarian up to the age of 20 when she abandoned it. It was based on primary documents rather than on other work by historians, and her organization is accomplished. "I suppose one's vanity is pleased by it, but if I could be born again with more beauty or more brains, I'd take the brains," Fraser is quoted in an article by Polly Samson appearing in Harper's Bazaar, November 1992, "Once you are called a beauty, then you are either an ex-beauty, a fading beauty, or 'still surprisingly beautiful.' Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry, The Warrior Queens;the mystery The Cavalier Case.
He was also a famed public crusader and writer. [18], She serves as a judge for the Enid McLeod Literary Prize, awarded by the Franco-British Society, previously winning that prize for her biography Marie Antoinette (2001). Mother and daughter proceeded to carve up English history between them: Lady Longford taking the 19th century, Lady Antonia taking the 17th century. [1][3][12], Correcting those who notice only her physical beauty—remarked upon both in her youth and well into her seventh decade—some commentators stress that, "more than just a pretty face", she is an accomplished historian and "an intellectual". sangfroid style and frank manner. Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot.
The earlier books, from the historian's point of view, were more researched than the later works, may be because she was thinking of becoming a mystery novelist. [16], She chronicled the life and times of Charles II in a well-reviewed 1979 eponymous biography. For items by and relating to Antonia Fraser held in the Manuscripts Collections of the British Library, one uses the "Descriptions search" facility for ", 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, 2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict/merger-proposal, Prise de Jérusalem par Hérode le Grand.jpg, Commanders of the Order of the British Empire, Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature, The Harold Pinter Archive in the British Library, "Author Profiles: Introducing Lady Antonia Fraser". Lord Weidenfeld was a family friend and had Lady Antonia editing the expletives from Saul Bellow's The Adventure of Augie March for the British market. More academic in character was her later book, The Weaker Vessel (1984), a volume about 17th-century women in England. 110B. Her first major work, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, was Mary, Queen of Scots (1969), which was followed by several other biographies, including Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973).