Margaret Elizabeth Jenkins (31 October 1905 – 5 September 2010) was an English novelist and

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' was a seminal work in the genre. Along wi ...

, Lady Caroline Lamb,

Joseph Lister Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, (5 April 1827 – 10 February 1912) was a British surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist and pioneer of aseptic, antiseptic surgery and preventive healthcare. Joseph Lister revolutionised the Sur ...

and

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...

Elizabeth Bowen Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen ( ; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer notable for her books about "The Big House in Ireland, the Big House" of Irish Landed gentry, landed ...

said Jenkins was "among the most distinguished living English novelists."

Early life

Jenkins was born on 31 October 1905 in

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district of Hertfordshire, England. The town dates from at least the 7th century. It lies in the valley of the River Hiz at the north-eastern end of the Chiltern Hills ...

, Hertfordshire. Her father, James Heald Jenkins, established the Caldicott School in 1904, which he named for her mother, Theodora Caldicott Ingram.Grimes, William
"Elizabeth Jenkins, Woman of Letters, Dies at 104"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', 8 September 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2010. She attended the Modern School and St Christopher School, Letchworth and the women-only

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

from 1921, a constituent college of the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, where she studied English and history, though women were not eligible to receive a degree from the university until 1948. She took a position teaching English at King Alfred School in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

in 1929. In 1939, when World War II started, she left her teaching position and worked assisting Jewish refugees and London air-raid victims for the Assistance Board. She later worked in government positions for the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for Business and Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

and the Ministry of Information. After the war, she was a reader for Gollancz, her publisher, and recommended

John Braine John Gerard Braine (13 April 1922 – 28 October 1986) was an English novelist. Braine is usually listed among the angry young men, a loosely defined group of English writers who emerged on the literary scene in the 1950s. Early life John Bra ...

’s Room at the Top, for publication.Jenkins, Elizabeth. ''The View from Downshire Hill''

Writing career

Novelist

Through Newnham's principal Pernel Strachey she met

Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...

and

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

, who would later call her first novel ''Virginia Water'' (1929) "a sweet white grape of a book". She sent her first novel to

Victor Gollancz Ltd Victor Gollancz Ltd () was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century and continues to publish science fiction and fantasy titles as an imprint of Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz, an ...

. When he realised it was the first thing she had written, he immediately gave her a contract for three books. Her 1934 novel, ''Harriet'' (republished by

Valancourt Books Valancourt Books is an independent American publishing house founded by James Jenkins and Ryan Cagle in 2005. The company specializes in "the rediscovery of rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction", in particular gay titles, Gothic novels a ...

in 2015), a fictionalised account of the murder of Harriet Staunton whose relatives starved her to death to get to her inheritance, won the

Prix Femina The Prix Femina is a French List of literary awards, literary prize awarded each year by an exclusively female jury. The prize, which was established in 1904, is awarded to French-language works written in prose or Verse (poetry), verse by male ...

.Staff
"Elizabeth Jenkins: Elizabeth Jenkins, who died on Sunday aged 104, was a sensitive and perceptive novelist and biographer; having been introduced to the Bloomsbury Group in the 1920s, she soon turned her back on Virginia Woolf, whom she found “appalling”, to achieve success in her own right."
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', 6 September 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2010. She beat

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

's A Handful of Dust and Antonia White's Frost in May to the prize. The novels ''Doubtful Joy'' followed in 1935 and ''The Phoenix' Nest'' in 1936. Other novels include ''Robert and Helen'' (1944) and ''A Silent Joy'' (1992). ''The Tortoise and the Hare'' (1954) is Jenkins' most successful novel. In his review

John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman, (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architect ...

said, "I do not think there is a sentence in this book out of character." It is about a marriage that was deeply troubled despite surface appearances. It was praised by

Hilary Mantel Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was releas ...

in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' as showing that Jenkins "seems to know a good deal about how women think and how their lives are arranged". Her 1972 novel, ''Dr. Gully's Story'', Jenkins' favourite, retold the story of the 19th-century physician

James Manby Gully James Manby Gully (14 March 1808 – 27 March 1883) was a Victorian medical doctor, well known for practising hydrotherapy, or the "water cure". Along with his partner James Wilson, he founded a very successful "hydropathy" (as it was then calle ...

, whose affair with Florence Bravo, and the subsequent poisoning death of her husband Charles Bravo, led to never-proven suspicions that Gully had committed murder.

Biographer

Jenkins published the first biographies of Lady Caroline Lamb in 1932 and of Jane Austen in 1938. She was involved in the establishment of the Jane Austen Society in 1940 and worked to purchase Austen's home in Chawton where she wrote ''Emma'' and other novels, and which later became the site of

Jane Austen's House Museum Jane Austen's House Museum is a small independent museum in the village of Chawton near Alton, Hampshire, Alton in Hampshire. It is a writer's house museum occupying the 17th-century house (informally known as Chawton Cottage) in which novelist ...

. Her 1958 biography, ''Elizabeth the Great'', "showed her biographical talents at their most effective" and provided what ''

'' called "a psychological dimension to her portrait that other historians had scanted", an attribute that could also be seen in her 1960 book ''Joseph Lister''.

A. L. Rowse Alfred Leslie Rowse (4 December 1903 – 3 October 1997) was a British historian and writer, best known for his work on Elizabethan England and books relating to Cornwall. Born in Cornwall and raised in modest circumstances, he was encourag ...

said that her biography of Elizabeth I "got nearer to penetrating the secret of the most remarkable woman in history than any other". In her 1961 book ''Elizabeth and Leicester'', Jenkins presented her hypothesis that the violent ends of

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the Wives of Henry VIII, second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading ...

and

Catherine Howard Catherine Howard ( – 13 February 1542) was Queen of England from July 1540 until November 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a first cousin to Anne Boleyn (the second ...

had made Elizabeth unable to establish a full sexual relationship with

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (24 June 1532 – 4 September 1588) was an English statesman and the favourite of Elizabeth I from her accession until his death. He was a suitor for the queen's hand for many years. Dudley's youth was ove ...

because she associated sex with death.

Later life

In all, Jenkins wrote a dozen novels and a dozen biographies. She was awarded an OBE in 1981. Her 2004 memoir ''The View from Downshire Hill'' recounted her decades of living in a

Regency architecture Regency architecture encompasses classical buildings built in the United Kingdom during the Regency era in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to earlier and later buildings following the same style. The period c ...

home she bought in Hampstead.Beauman, Nicola
"Elizabeth Jenkins obituary: Sensitive novelist and biographer of strong female characters"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 7 September 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2010. She moved into the house in 1939 and decorated it with Regency style furniture that she had acquired inexpensively in the years following World War II from period houses that had been damaged during the war. She would later say that, based on her decor, "people assumed I was comfortably off, instead of being very hard up". Towards the end of her life, Jenkins told a journalist she had had an affair with the prominent gynaecologist Sir Eardley Lancelot Holland. Holland was the basis of the character Eardley in Jenkins' ''The Tortoise and the Hare'', which Jenkins said was an autobiography "not in fact, but in feeling." Jenkins died at the age of 104 on 5 September 2010 at a nursing home in

, London, where she had resided in the years before her death. She never married. She told Virginia Nicholson, "I just shuddered at the idea of childbirth, and then went on to something else."

Bibliography

Novels

* 1929 ''Virginia Water'' * 1931 ''The Winters'' * 1933 ''Portrait of an Actor'' * 1934 ''Harriet'' (Republished in 2012 by

Persephone Books ''Persephone Books'' is an independent publisher based in Bath, England. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone Books reprints works largely by women writers of the late 19th and 20th century, though a few books by men are included. Th ...

) * 1935 ''Doubtful Joy'' * 1936 ''The Phoenix' Nest'' * 1944 ''Robert and Helen'' * 1946 ''Young Enthusiasts'' * 1954 ''The Tortoise and the Hare'' (Republished by Virago Books) * 1963 ''Brightness'' * 1968 ''Honey'' * 1972 ''Dr Gully's Story'' * 1992 ''A Silent Joy''

Biographies

* 1932 ''Lady Caroline Lamb'' * 1936 ''Jane Austen: A Biography'' * 1947 ''Henry Fielding'' * 1949 ''Six Criminal Women'' * 1955 ''Ten Fascinating Women'' * 1958 ''Elizabeth the Great'' * 1960 ''Joseph Lister'' * 1961 ''Elizabeth and Leicester'' * 1978 ''The Princes in the Tower'' * 1982 ''The Shadow and the Light''

Memoir

* 2004 ''The View from Downshire Hill''

Short stories

* 1955 "On No Account, My Love""On No Account, My Love"; in: Cynthia Asquith (ed.), ''The Third Ghost Book'', James Barrie, London, 1955.

References

Sources

Author Profile at Persephone Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Elizabeth 1905 births 2010 deaths Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge English women novelists Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Hampstead Writers from the London Borough of Camden People from Hitchin Writers from Hertfordshire People educated at St Christopher School English women biographers 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English biographers English women non-fiction writers English women centenarians