Elizabeth Miriam Squire Sprigge (10 June 1900, in
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
– 9 December 1974) was an English novelist, biographer, translator, and children's writer.
Biography
Elizabeth Sprigge was the elder daughter of Sir
Samuel Squire Sprigge
Sir Samuel Squire Sprigge (22 June 1860 – 17 June 1937) was an English physician, medical editor, and medical writer.
Biography
After education at Uppingham School from 1873 to 1878, he matriculated on 1 October 1878 at Caius College, Cambri ...
, editor of ''The Lancet''. On 23 July 1921 she married Mark Napier-Clavering (1898–1983), a business agent employed by
Debenhams, who on 27 May 1924 dropped 'Clavering' from his name by deed poll, it having been adopted by his grandfather, Rev. John Warren Napier. He was a descendant of
Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier. They were divorced in 1945, having had two daughters: Julyan Napier (1922–2005) and Ruth Napier (1923–1996).
From her late twenties until the end of her life, Elizabeth Sprigge published steadily. She might be best remembered for her 1973 biography of her long-time friend
Ivy Compton-Burnett. According to
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...
,
Hilary Spurling's "exhaustively researched" ''Life of I. Compton-Burnett'' (Knopf, 1984) ".. seems to follow the general outline set by Elizabeth Sprigge's memoir-biography... while greatly expanding upon it" Likewise,
J. Bhagyalakshmi, in 'Ivy Compton-Burnett and her Art (1986) reflects that as opposed to Sprigge- who produced 'a friend's memoir'- Spurling took 'pains of a scholar' in compiling her biography; whereas Sprigge uncritically recounts the family tradition of kinship with landowning Scottish Burnetts and descent from them through
Alexander Burnett, 12th Laird of Leys, his son, judge
Robert Burnet, Lord Crimond, and his grandson
Gilbert Burnet
Gilbert Burnet (18 September 1643 – 17 March 1715) was a Scottish philosopher and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, a preacher, an academic, ...
,
Bishop of Salisbury from 1689 to 1715, Spurling, acknowledging the 'many misleading claims... made for I. Compton-Burnett's family tree'), meticulously traces the family back to the small tenant farmers from whom they actually descended. Additionally, Compton-Burnett's father, James, was claimed to be son of 'a considerable landowner' at Redlynch, near Salisbury, the place of James's birth (despite James always plainly referring to his father Charles as 'a farmer'); Charles was in fact an itinerant farm labourer- including at Redlynch- who later settled at French Street, in a poor area of Southampton; the other Compton-Burnetts of Charles's generation were labourers and grocers).
Selected publications
Novels
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Children's books
*
*
*
*
Biographies
*
*
*
*
*
Translations
*
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sprigge, Elizabeth
1900 births
1974 deaths
English women novelists
English biographers
English children's writers
British women children's writers
English translators
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English women writers
English women non-fiction writers
British women biographers
20th-century English translators