Angela Carter

By the time of her death in 1992, Angela Carter had come to be regarded as one of the most successful and original British authors of the twentieth-century, and her writing has subsequently become the focus of a burgeoning body of criticism. This book disentangles the cult of Angela Carter as 'the fairy godmother of magical realism' from her own claims to be a materialist and a 'demythologiser' by placing her within the social, political and theoretical context within which she wrote. Drawing on Carter's own autobiographical articles as well as her novels and short stories, this study examines her engagement with topical issues such as national (particularly English) identity, class, politics and feminism, assessing the relationship between her life, her times and her art.

'Placing the work of an author like Angela Carter who consistently plays around with the notion of the writing self and whose own autobiographical essays and statements are not to be entirely trusted within its biographical and cultural contexts is a demanding project. In Angela Carter: A Literary Life, Sarah Gamble rises to the challenge, demonstrating convincingly that Carter's portrayal of the self as provisional and contingent does not mean that we cannot make connections between her art and her life. Gamble's emphasis upon Carter as an astute observer of the societies in which she lived and worked is a refreshing perspective on a writer more commonly associated with fantasy than political comment.' - Professor Linden Peach, University of Gloucestershire, UK

'Angela Carter: A Literary Life offers insight for appreciating Carter's style, but more importantly it demonstrates Carter's relationship to the social and historical contexts within which she wrote. As part of Palgrave's Literary Lives series, Gamble's book establishes these contexts through careful reasoning and thorough research... Gamble's method provides a thoughtful and coherent reading of Carter's major works.' - Carolyn Perry, Literature& History, 2008

SARAH GAMBLE is Senior Lecturer in English and Gender at the University of Wales, Swansea, UK. She is the author of Angela Carter: Writing from the Front Line and the editor of Angela Carter: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism. In addition, she is the editor of The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism. She has also published essays on a variety of contemporary women writers, including Pat Barker and Carol Shields.