Elizabeth Jane Howard

Elizabeth Jane Howard, CBE, FRSL (26 March 1923 – 2 January 2014), was an English novelist. She had previously been an actress and a model.^[1]

Career

In 1951, she won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her first novel, The Beautiful Visit (1950). Six further novels followed, before she embarked on her best known work, The Cazalet Chronicle, a family saga set in wartime England. The first four volumes were published between 1990-1995: The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off, with the fifth, All Change, published in 2013. The first two works were serialised by Cinema Verity for BBC Television as The Cazalets.

Howard wrote the screenplay for the 1989 movie, Getting It Right, based on her 1982 novel of the same name and directed by Randal Kleiser.^[2]

She also wrote a book of short stories, Mr. Wrong (1975), and edited two anthologies.

Personal life

She married Sir Peter Scott in 1942, and they had a daughter, Nicola (born 1943). Howard left Scott in 1946, and they were divorced in 1951. At this time she was employed as part-time secretary to the pioneering canals conservation organization the Inland Waterways Association, where she met and collaborated with Robert Aickman on the story collection, We Are for the Dark (1951).

Her second marriage, to Jim Douglas-Henry in 1958, was brief. Her third marriage, to novelist Sir Kingsley Amis, lasted from 1965 to 1983; for part of that time, 1968–1976, they lived at Lemmons, a Georgian house in Barnet, where Howard wrote Something in Disguise (1969).^[3] Her stepson, Martin Amis, has credited her with encouraging him to become a more serious reader and writer.^[4]

Later years

She lived in Bungay, Suffolk and was awarded a CBE in 2000.^[5] Her autobiography, Slipstream, was published in 2002.^[6] She died, aged 90, at home on 2 January 2014.^[1]

Works

• The Beautiful Visit. Jonathan Cape. 1950. ISBN 0-224-60977-7.  Winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• We Are for the Dark: Six Ghost Stories. Jonathan Cape. 1951. (a collection containing three stories by Howard and three by Robert Aickman)
• The Long View. Jonathan Cape. 1956. ISBN 0-224-60318-3. 
• The Sea Change. Jonathan Cape. 1959. ISBN 0-224-60319-1. 
• After Julius. Jonathan Cape. 1965. ISBN 0-224-61037-6. 
• Something in Disguise. Jonathan Cape. 1969. ISBN 0-224-61744-3. 
• Odd Girl Out. Jonathan Cape. 1972. ISBN 0-224-00661-4. 
• Mr. Wrong. Jonathan Cape. 1975. 
• Getting It Right. Hamish Hamilton. 1982. ISBN 0-241-10805-5. 
• The Light Years. Macmillan Publishers. 1990. ISBN 0-333-53875-7. 
• Marking Time. Macmillan. 1991. ISBN 0-333-56596-7. 
• Confusion. Macmillan. 1993. ISBN 0-333-57582-2. 
• Casting Off. Macmillan. 1995. ISBN 0-333-60757-0. 
• Falling. Macmillan. 1999. ISBN 0-333-73020-8. 
• Slipstream. Macmillan. 2002. ISBN 0-333-90349-8. 
• Three Miles Up and Other Strange Stories. ISBN 1-872621-75-9.  (contains the three stories included in We Are for the Dark, plus Mr Wrong)
• Love All. Macmillan. 2008. ISBN 1-4050-4161-7. 
• All Change. Macmillan. 2013. ISBN 0230743072. 

References

Notes

Further reading

• Elizabeth Jane Howard: Overview, Orlando (website), Cambridge University Press, accessed 1 November 2010, archived by WebCite on 31 October 2010.
• "Elizabeth Jane Howard", BBC Radio 4, 29 October 2002, accessed 1 November 2010.
• Brown, Andrew. "Loves and letters", The Guardian, 9 November 2002, accessed 1 November 2010.
• (subscription required) Millard, Rosie. "The beauty and the psycho", The Times, 12 October 2008, accessed 1 November 2010.

External links

• Elizabeth Jane Howard at the Internet Movie Database
• Elizabeth Jane Howard on Desert Island Discs