Elizabeth Howard: biography, bibliography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Elizabeth Howard is a famous English writer, popular model and actress. She wrote a large number of works with readers and critics, including "Carefree Years", "Chronicles of the Cazalet Family", and the last novel was even filmed.

Biography of the writer

Elizabeth Howard was born in 1923. She was born in the town of Bangui in Suffolk, England. In her youth, she became interested in acting, and even achieved some success in this field. During the Second World War, she worked as a journalist, collaborated with the BBC news agency.

At the same time, in her youth, Elizabeth Jane Howard did not even think about a career as a writer. For the first time, she began to try herself in literature only in the 50s, when she was 30 years old.

Literary creativity

Already in 1951, Elizabeth Howard received her first literary prize. The award was presented to her for the novel "Beautiful Visit", which was published in1950. Before embarking on her most famous work, the Cazalet series, Elizabeth Howard wrote six more novels that had some success.

She was not limited to novels. She is the author of a collection of short stories called "Mr Harm", television scripts, she was the editor of three anthologies. In 2002, her autobiography was published, which was popular with the writer's fans.

For her literary work, Howard was even awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2000. Currently, her books have been translated into a large number of foreign languages, they have sold millions of copies around the world.

Her most famous film work is the screenplay for Randal Kleiser's comedy-drama Getting It Right. She created it based on her novel of the same name. The film and book are about 31-year-old Gavin, who still lives with his parents at that age.

In many ways, his life develops because of increased shyness, so his relationships with women do not add up. But unexpectedly, two are addicted to him at once - Lady Minerva Munday and we althy, sexually preoccupied Joan. Surprisingly, Gavin will refuse both of these women, opting for the most ordinary hairdresser.

Howard spent the last years of her life in her hometown of Bangui in Suffolk. She constantly worked, it is creativity that makes her get out of bed every day. In 2014, the heroine of our article died at her home after a short illness. Herwas 90 years old.

Private life

Model and aspiring actress Elizabeth in her youth conquered many with her beauty. But for a long time she could not find personal happiness, she was married three times. Her first husband was Sir Peter Scott, who was the son of the famous Arctic explorer Robert Scott. In 1943, during the Second World War, they had a daughter, whom they named Nikola. In 1951, the couple divorced, shortly after Howard became interested in literary work. Peter Scott became famous when he became one of the founders of the World Wildlife Fund.

Left alone, Elizabeth took a part-time job at a conservation organization as a secretary. There she met Robert Aikman. She collaborated with him on the collection of short stories In the Dark. But their relationship didn't last long.

The second time the heroine of our article married Jim Douglas-Henry in 1958, but the couple broke up very soon. In 1983, she entered into a third marriage with the writer Kingsley Amis, who was considered in Britain one of the leaders of the literary movement "angry young people".

It is believed that it was Elizabeth who fascinated her stepson with literature, who also became a writer. Martin Amis wrote such popular works as "Dead Babies", "Space Aliens Invasion", "London Fields", "Night Train", "The Arrow of Time or the Nature of Crime", "Pregnantwidow".

Family Chronicle

Howard's most famous work is a series of books about the Cazalet family. This is a saga about the life of several generations of an English family in England during the war.

From 1990 to 1995 Elizabeth released the first four novels, and at the end of 2013, the last book in the series, titled Everything Changes, was released. Radio plays based on these books were released on the BBC, and then the novels were also filmed.

In 2001, the TV series "Cazalets" directed by Suri Krishnam appeared on the screens. Starring Hugh Bonneville, Stephen Dillane, Leslie Manville.

Tragicomedy with a British accent

This is how critics originally describe one of the most famous novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard "The Carefree Years", which is part of a series of books about the Cazalet family.

The events in it unfold in 1937, when the Second World War is still so far away that no one even thinks about it. Hugh, Rupert and Edward, along with their wives and children, go on vacation to the family estate outside the city to spend the whole summer there. The heroes of the novel "Carefree Years" by Elizabeth Howard are constantly faced with petty sorrows and problems, they learn shameful secrets of each other, they are tormented by disturbing forebodings.

This is a classic English novel that captures the atmosphere that prevailed in pre-war Britain.