Joyce was born in Dublin and attended Jesuit schools and University College, Dublin. Disgusted with Irish provincialism and Roman Catholic bigotry, he -1002- left Ireland for Paris in 1902; except for two brief visits, he lived with his wife, Nora Barnacle, in Europe for the rest of his life, in Paris, Trieste, and Zurich. The publication of his collection of short fiction, Dubliners (1914), occasioned his last visit to Ireland, and his autobiographical novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published serially in the celebrated journal The Egoist in 1914 and 1915. Hampered by a severe case of glaucoma, Joyce survived in large part through the support of patrons like Harriet Shaw Weaver. Joyce published his greatest work, Ulysses, in Paris in 1922, and although banned in the United States as obscene it was immediately hailed by many as a modernist masterpiece that revolutionized the art of the novel. His last work, Finnegans Wake (1939), has drawn much critical attention, but its forbidding complexity has discouraged most readers.
Kingsley was educated at King's College, London, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1844 he became the rector of Eversley in Hampshire. His blank verse drama, The Saint's Tragedy (1848), was a characteristically political work, which led to his active participation in the movement for political and social reform. This commitment is also reflected in his novels of working-class life, Yeast (1850) and Alton Locke (1850). Hypatia, or New Foes with Old Faces (1853) deals with the Greek Neoplatonist who was put to death by Christians in A.D. 415. The Crimean War and his own patriotism inspired the novel Westward Ho! (1855). His other novels of note include Two Years Ago (1857), Hereward the Wake (1866), Heroes (1856), and The Water-Babies (1863).
Born in India, the son of a scholar and artist, Kipling was raised from the age of six in England by a foster family in Southsea, where he was lonely and unhappy. He was educated at the United Services College, a school for army officers' children, and returned to India when he was seventeen in 1882. There he began to work as a journalist and shortly after published Plain Tales from the Hills (1888), a book that made him overnight a literary celebrity. His short fiction and poems about military life in India such as those in Barrack-Room Ballads (189 2) won him wide acclaim in England. From 1892 to 1896 he lived in Vermont with his American wife, and while there he wrote The Jungle Book (1894). Other popular children's books followed, such as Just So Stories (1902), Puck of Pook's Hill (1906), and Rewards and Fairies (1910). Kim (1901) is generally thought to be his masterpiece, marking him as one of the great chroniclers of British colonial expansion. In 1907, Kipling was the first British writer to receive the Nobel Prize. -1003-
Lawrence was born into a family of five children in Nottinghamshire, the son of a schoolteacher and a miner. Amid often brutal poverty, Lawrence managed with the love and help of his mother to excel in school; he won a scholarship to attend high school until he was forced to find a job. After a period of working he resumed his education at Nottingham University College with the aim of earning a teaching certificate. It was at this point that he began writing, mostly poetry and short stories. His first novel, The White Peacock (1911), was followed by The Trespasser (1912) and then by his great autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers (1913). Having eloped with Frieda Weekley in 1912, Lawrence embarked on a turbulent marital life that included an enormous amount of travel to such places as Ceylon, Australia, the United States, and Mexico. The Rainbow (1915) marked the beginning of his persistent troubles with censorship, a problem that dogged the publication of Women in Love (1920) for five years and would later make Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) notorious. His other novels of note include The Lost Girl (1920), Aaron's Rod (1922), Kangaroo (1923), and The Plumed Serpent (1926).
Lee was a dramatist and novelist who ran a private school in Bath. She is best known for her play The Chapter of Accidents (1780) and her novels
Lennox was born in America, the daughter of New York's lieutenant governor. After arriving in England and failing to launch a career as an actress she began to write novels. Her works are nuanced exercises in the novel of sentiment. They include Life of Harriot Stuart (1750); The Female Quixote (1752), her most renowned work; and Henrietta (1758). She also published a volume of translations of Shakespeare sources entitled Shakespear Illustrated (1753–1754), and a dramatic comedy, The Sister (1769).
Born in Persia to British parents, Lessing moved with her family at the age of five to a farm in Southern Rhodesia. After dropping out of school at fifteen, she worked as a nursemaid, secretary, and telephone operator. When her first marriage ended she became active in leftist politics. In 1949, Lessing went to England with her youngest child and published her first novel,
Best known for his Gothic novel
Lodge is known for both his novels and his criticism. A graduate of University College, London, he was appointed professor of modern English literature at the University of Birmingham in 1976. As a critic his contributions have been versatile as well as accessible. His novels are satirical and theoretically knowing. They include The British Museum Is Falling Down (1965), Changing Places (1975), How Far Can You Go? (1980), and Small World (1984).
Besides being a lawyer and Comptroller of the Taxes for Scotland, MacKenzie was the author of an enormously important novel, The Man of Feeling (1771). He also published the novels The Man of the World (1773) and Julia de Roubigné (1777), and a play, The Prince of Tunis (1773). Mackenzie edited and contributed to two magazines, the Mirror and the Lounger, and headed the commission that investigated Macpherson's Ossianic poems.
Manley led a sensational private life in which she carried on a bigamous marriage with her cousin John Manle y and was a mistress to the warden of the Fleet Prison, John Tilly. She is known for her novels The New Atalantis (1709), a satire on Whigs and public figures, and The Adventures of Rivella (1714), an autobiographical piece. Manley succeeded Jonathan Swift as editor of the Examiner in 1711.
Manning was reared in Portsmouth and spent an important period of her adult life in Hungary, Greece, Egypt, and Jerusalem. This period provided the basis for her two great war trilogies: The Balkan Trilogy (The Great Fortune, 1960; The Spoilt City, 1962; Friends and Heroes, 1965) and The Levant Trilogy (The Danger Tree, 1977; The Battle Lost and Won, 1978; and The Sum of Things, 1980). -1005-
Marryat was both writer and naval captain. His initial, semiautobiographical novel, The Naval Officer: or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay (1829) was well received. He resigned his commission in 1830 to pursue his literary career, during which he wrote fifteen novels. His best-known later novels are Peter Simple (1834), Jacob Faithful (1834), and Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836).
A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Maturin was briefly a headmaster of a school. He is best known for his work in the Gothic novel, publishing The Fatal Revenge in 1807, The Wild Irish Boy in 1808, and The Milesian Chief in 1811. After some success in the theater, Maturin returned to novels and produced his most important work, Melmoth
