Penelope Fitzger ald
Penelope Fitzgerald
The late-flowering Penelope Fitzgerald(1916–2000), must now have a claim to be
regarded as the most distinguished English writer of the last quarter of her century.
This has been generously recognized by juniors such as A. S. Byatt, rather in the way
Eliot and Auden were astonished at being overtaken by the late work of W. B. Yeats.
Julian Barnes, in a perceptive memorial essay about Fitzgerald in 2008, keeps asking
himself ‘How does she do it?’ The chronology of her life and of her writing career is
worth a look
Ishiguro once wrote that a novelist is at his best between the ages of 30 and 45.
Penelope Fitzgerald published her second book, and the first to show all her talents,
at the age of 61:The Knox Brothers,a biography of four brothers, one of whom was
her father. It was a scholarly family. Her grandfathers were bishops, her mother was
one of the first women to attend Somerville College, Oxford. Her father, E. V. Knox,
the most conventional of the Bishop of Manchester’s four sons, became editor of
Punch, still at that time a national institution. His brothers were more unusual:
Dilwyn Knox, a classicist who did cryptographic work of national importance in
both world wars; Wilfrid Knox, a saintly Anglican priest, college chaplain, biblical
scholar and devoted worker for the poor; and Ronald Knox, gifted writer, cleric, wit
and parodist, who found all linguistic, literary and scholarly puzzles very easy. He
produced a fine and scholarly translation of the New Testament single-handed, in a
‘timeless’ English, now a little dated. Ronald’s early conversion to Catholicism led
eventually to his father disinheriting him.
The traditions of the Knox family were plain living, the life of the mind and the
love of truth, though not without fun. ‘When I was very young’, Penelope wrote in
her Preface to this joint biography, ‘I took my uncles for granted, and it never
occurred to me that everyone else in the world was not like them. Later on, I found
that this was not so; but I’ve never quite managed to adapt myself to it. I suppose
they were unusual, but I still think that they were right, and insofar as the world
disagrees with them, I disagree with the world.’ One could read this biography not
knowing that the author is writing about her own family. It is written with deep
affection yet also with dispassionate detachment. All her work combines modesty
and tact with an ability to master difficult and alien fields, concealing all signs of the
work that has gone into it. ‘I always feel the reader is very insulted by being told too418 15 · CONTEMPORARIES
Penelope Fitzgerald
(1916–2000) Edward
Burne-Jones(1975), The
Knox Brothers(1977),
Charlotte Mew and Her
Friends: With a Selection of
Her Poems(1984). Novels:
The Golden Child(1977), The
Bookshop(1978), Offshore
(1979), Human Voices
(1980), At Freddie’s(1982),
Innocence(1986), The
Beginning of Spring(1988),
The Blue Flower(1995, UK;
1997, USA), So I Have
Thought of You: The Letters of
Penelope Fitzgerald(2008).
Penelope Fitzgerald
(1916–2000), 8 August
1990.