Penelope Fitzgerald
| Penelope Fitzgerald | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | Penelope Knox 17 December 1916 Lincoln, England |
| Died | 28 April 2000 (aged 83) London, England |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 20th century, 21st century |
| Notable works | Offshore, The Blue Flower |
| Notable awards | Booker Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award |
| Spouse | Desmond Fitzgerald (1941–1976) |
Penelope Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning English novelist, poet, essayist and biographer. In 2008, The Times included her in a list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2012, The Observer named her final novel, The Blue Flower one of "the ten best historical novels".
Penelope Fitzgerald was born Penelope Mary Knox at the Old Bishop's Palace, Lincoln, the daughter of Edmund Knox, later editor of Punch, and Christina Hicks, daughter of Edward Hicks, the bishop of Lincoln, and one of the first women students at Oxford. She was a niece of the theologian and crime writer Ronald Knox, the cryptographer Dillwyn Knox, the Bible scholar Wilfred Knox, and the novelist and biographer Winifred Peck. Fitzgerald later wrote: "When I was young I took my father and my three uncles for granted, and it never occurred to me that everyone else wasn't like them. Later on, I found that this was a mistake, but I've never quite managed to adapt myself to it. I suppose they were unusual, but I still think that they were right, and insofar as the world disagrees with them, I disagree with the world."
She was educated at Wycombe Abbey and Somerville College, Oxford University, from which she graduated in 1938 with a congratulatory First; she was named a "Woman of the Year" in Isis, the student newspaper. She worked for the BBC during World War II, and in 1942 she married Desmond Fitzgerald, whom she had met in 1940 while they were both at Oxford. When they met he was studying for the bar and had enlisted to serve as a soldier with the Irish Guards. Six months after their marriage, Desmond's regiment was sent to North Africa. He won the Military Cross in the Western Desert Campaign in Libya campaign, but when he returned to civilian life he was an alcoholic.
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