Drabble, Margaret

Related Category: English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies

1939–, English novelist, b. Sheffield, Yorkshire. Drabble's realistic vision of an England split between traditional values and contemporary desires is apparent in such works as The Millstone (1965), The Waterfall (1969), and The Middle Ground (1980), and in her critical studies on Wordsworth (1966) and Arnold Bennett (1974). Increasingly Drabble's focus has moved from society as a whole to the fate of women, as in The Radiant Way (1987), its sequel, A Natural Curiosity (1989), The Gates of Ivory (1991), The Peppered Moth (2001), whose central character is based on her mother, and The Seven Sisters (2002). She also edited the Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985).