Penelope Mary Fitzgerald, (1916–2000,) née Knox, was a British novelist, short-story writer, and biographer. Although she published her first novel when she was 55, she is celebrated for the skillful handling of her characters.
Born in Lincoln in England’s East Midlands, Fitzgerald was educated at Oxford and worked for the BBC during World War II. Her literary career began at age 59 with her biography of the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones (1975.) Her first novel, The Golden Child (1977,) is a murder mystery involving an exhibition of Egyptian treasures in a London museum. The Golden Child was followed by The Bookshop (1978,) and Offshore (1979; Booker Prize.)
Fitzgerald’s other novels include Human Voices (1980,) Innocence (1986,) and The Blue Flower (1995; National Book Critics Circle Prize.) She also published biographies of her father (Punch magazine editor Edward Knox) and her three uncles, The Knox Brothers (1977) and the English poet Charlotte Mew (1984.)
The Means of Escape (2000) is a collection of Fitzgerald’s short stories. So I Have Thought of You (2008) is a collection of her letters.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Penelope Fitzgerald
If they don’t depend on true evidence, scientists are no better than gossips.
—Penelope Fitzgerald
Topics: Science
It’s very good for an idea to be commonplace. The important thing is that a new idea should develop out of what is already there so that it soon becomes an old acquaintance. Old acquaintances aren’t by any means always welcome, but at least one can’t be mistaken as to who or what they are.
—Penelope Fitzgerald
Topics: Ideas
However, no two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is –in other words, not a thing, but a think.
—Penelope Fitzgerald
Topics: Perception
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