Penelope Fitzgerald
I am well into Hermione Lee’s biography of Penelope Fitzgerald and I am riveted. I’ll be blogging about it when I have finished it. It is particularly fascinating to read a biography when the subject is someone you’ve known.I first met Penelope when I was curator at the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith at the end of the 1980s. When I’d moved on from my job as curator to lecture at Homerton College, I stayed on the committee, and in due course became vice-chair and then chair. It was in that capacity that I spoke on behalf of the Society at Penelope Fitzgerald’s memorial service. This is some of what I said.
‘Penelope joined in [The William Morris Society] in 1973 and over the years she was a loyal friend of the Society – and of Morris and Burne-Jones. She reviewed books for our Journal, gave lectures, chaired meetings. My own memories of her include standing with her on a bitterly cold day near the site of Burne-Jones’s house, the Grange, in Kensington on the day that it was given a blue plaque. In 1982 she edited – most appropriately – Morris’s only novel, the unfinished Novel on Blue Paper.
Of course the greatest and most lasting contribution in this area is her biography of Burne-Jones. This marvellous book is frank, yet tactful, non-judgmental, but very shrewd. Above all it is a wonderful read, as compulsively readable as one of her novels. No-one has got closer to the psychological roots of Burne-Jones’s art. Penelope combined a scholarly concern for exactitude with a novelist’s sensibility to produce what is as much the portrait of a marriage and of a remarkable woman, Georgiana Burne-Jones, as a biography of an artist. I think Penelope felt a special sympathy for Georgiana, who had been her husband’s first biographer. The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones is one of the really great Victorian biographies and Penelope’s book was a worthy successor.
When Georgiana Burne-Jones died in 1920, J. W. Mackail, her son-in-law and also Morris’s biographer, wrote a tribute. Much of it might equally have been written for Penelope and I want to end by reading a little of it:
“She was a personality of extraordinary distinction and charm. No one, man or woman, who made her acquaintance failed to come under the spell of a nature that radiated beauty. Her intellectual powers were great . . . She had large clear eyes for art, books and human beings. Unaffected and touching humility was combined in her with quiet dignity. Few, if any, were more alive to follies and absurdities . . . her heart did not harden or her eager receptiveness lessen with the years. She burned to end with a clear, steady flame, leaving to those who love her a memory which is a continuing presence.”‘
6 Comments
lyn
December 11, 2013Beautiful words about Georgiana & Penelope. How interesting that you knew her, it must make reading the biography a very different experience. I have the PF biography & Fitzgerald’s biography of Burne-Jones on the tbr shelves & want to read them soon. Hermione Lee’s biographies are always sympathetic & beautifully written.
Christine
December 13, 2013Thanks, Lyn. I didn’t know PF well, but yes, it’s intriguing. I have almost got up to the point in the biography where I met her. I am racing through it and will write about it when I’ve finished it.
Jeanne Rathbone
September 2, 2023We installed a Battersea Society plaque to Penelope Fitzgerald today on 25 Almeric Road where she lived with her daughter Tina and her husband Terence Dooley her literary executor who spoke at the unveiling today alongside Dame Hermione and Alan Hollinghurst Booker winner read from Offshore.. I was Mc as I Penelope featured in my book Inspiring Women of Battersea. I mentioned that nearby is Gilmore House – the deaconate run by Isabella Gilmore, sister of William Morris, who had commissioned Philip Webb to design a little chapel that she paid for which included a Burne-Jones designed window which is still there as a private apartment.photos are on social media
Christine Poulson
November 8, 2023How lovely – and well deserved. She was a novelist of rare distinction and her biography of Byrne-Jones is a masterpiece. Thank you for letting me know.
Jeanne Rathbone
October 5, 2024Hi Christine, I just came across this again and thought I would let you know that nearby to Penelope’s plaque I organised the unveiling of a plaque to Deaconess Isabella Gilmore, sister of William Morris, on Gilmore House 113 Clapham Common northside SW4 on the Elspeth Road side. It is a joint Battersea Society/Diocese of Southwark plaque.
Last Saturday at 84 Lavender Sweep I organised the unveiling of a plaque to Tom Taylor 1817-1880 playwright and Laura Barker 1819-1905 composer. He was a civil servant, editor of Punch, art critic and wrote Our American Cousin the play Abraham Lincoln was watching when assassinated. He also cofounded with Lord Fred Ponsonby The Old Stagers which is the longest running amateur theatre group in the world.
Christine Poulson
October 5, 2024What fascinating range of characters! Thanks for telling me about them.