Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor (née Coles; 3 July 1912 – 19 November 1975) was an English novelist and short-story writer. Kingsley Amis described her as "one of the best English novelists born in this century". Antonia Fraser called her "one of the most underrated writers of the 20th century", while Hilary Mantel said she was "deft, accomplished and somewhat underrated". Her 1971 novel Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont was shortlisted for The Booker Prize.

Life and writings

Born in Reading, Berkshire, the daughter of Oliver Coles, an insurance inspector, and his wife Elsie May Fewtrell, Elizabeth was educated at The Abbey School, Reading, and then worked as a governess, tutor and librarian. In 1936 she married John Taylor, owner of a confectionery company. They lived in Penn, Buckinghamshire for almost all their married life. She was briefly a member of the British Communist Party, then a consistent Labour Party supporter.

Taylor's first novel, At Mrs. Lippincote's, was published in 1945. It was followed by eleven more. Her short stories were published in magazines and collected in four volumes. She also wrote a children's book.

She was a friend of the novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett and of the novelist and critic Robert Liddell. Her long correspondence with the latter forms the subject of one of her short stories, "The Letter Writers" (published in The Blush, 1951), but the letters were destroyed, in line with her general policy of keeping her private life private. A horror of publicity is the subject of another celebrated short story, "Sisters", written in 1969.

Taylor was also a close friend of Elizabeth Jane Howard, who was asked by Taylor's widower to write a biography following Elizabeth Taylor's death. Howard refused due to what she felt was a lack of incident in Taylor's life. Howard's memoir, Slipstream, includes more details on their friendship.

Taylor's editor at the UK publisher Chatto & Windus was the poet D. J. Enright.

Elizabeth Taylor died of cancer in Penn, Buckinghamshire, at the age of 63.

Film adaptations

Perhaps the first film adaptation of one of her works was on the television series "Tales of the Unexpected", in August 1980, of the short story "The Flypaper." This broadcast became one of the infamously dark and sinister episodes in British TV history.

In the 21st century a new interest in her work was kindled by film-makers. Ruth Sacks Caplin had written a film screenplay based on Taylor's novel Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont in the 1970s, but it languished for decades until her son, Lee Caplin, purchased the rights to the film in 1999. Ruth Sacks Caplin's film adaptation, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, directed by Dan Ireland, was finally released in 2005 with British actress Joan Plowright in the title role.

French director François Ozon made a 2007 film of Angel with Romola Garai.

Critical appraisal

Taylor's work is mainly concerned with the nuances of everyday life and situations. Anne Tyler once compared Taylor to Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Bowen – "soul sisters all," in Tyler's words.

The critic Philip Hensher called The Soul of Kindness a novel "so expert that it seems effortless. As it progresses, it seems as if the cast are so fully rounded that all the novelist had to do was place them, successively, in one setting after another and observe how they reacted to each other.... The plot... never feels as if it were organised in advance; it feels as if it arises from her characters' mutual responses."