Janice Elliott
Janice Elliott was an English author born in 1931 in Derby, England. She pursued her education at Oxford University, where she actively engaged in dramatics and began writing plays. After graduating in 1953, Elliott transitioned into journalism, contributing to notable publications such as The Sunday Times and Harper's Bazaar. In 1962, she dedicated herself to novel writing, producing a prolific body of work that included twenty-eight novels, two screenplays, and a collection of short stories before her death in 1995.
Elliott's novels often explored themes related to affluent English middle-class society, particularly focusing on the lives and complexities of women, frequently depicting them as resilient figures in contrast to their male counterparts. Her writing style is characterized by economic prose and the use of dialogue to convey meaning. Notable works include the trilogy set in postwar London, the socially critical Summer People, and the speculative Figures in the Sand. Elliott's contributions to literature earned her accolades, including the Southern Arts Award for Literature in 1981 and membership in the Royal Society of Literature in 1989.
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Subject Terms
Janice Elliott
Fiction Writer
- Born: October 14, 1931
- Birthplace: Derby, England
- Died: July 25, 1995
- Place of death: Cornwall, England
Biography
Janice Elliott was born in 1931 in Derby, England. Her father, Douglas John Elliott, was an advertising executive; her mother was Dorothy Wilson. After high school, she went to Oxford University in 1950, to St. Anne’s Society (now St. Anne’s College), where she was active in dramatics and wrote four verse plays. After graduating in 1953, she worked as a journalist, writing articles for The Sunday Times and Twentieth Century, and worked at various times on the editorial staff of Harper’s Bazaar and The Sunday Times. In 1959, she married Robert Cooper, a public affairs advisor for an oil company, though she retained her unmarried name as her pen name. The couple had one child, a son, Alexander.
In 1962, Elliott resigned her journalistic work to devote herself to novel writing, though she continued to do some freelance journalism and criticism. Between then and her death in the summer of 1995, she wrote prolifically but consistently: twenty-eight novels in all, two screenplays, and a collection of short stories, The Noise from the Zoo, and Other Stories (1992). Of the novels, three were for children: The Birthday Unicorn (1970), Alexander and the Land of Mog (1973), and The Incompetent Dragon (1982).
Her first novel was Cave with Echoes, published in 1962, the success of which confirmed her in her change of career. Another early novel which received praise was The Godmother (1966) about an old woman dying. The book is filled with people whose passive lives belie an inner violence. In the same year, she wrote an article “Women Beware Women” which asks why novels then being written by women seemed so lightweight. She answered her own question in terms of narcissism and self-disgust. She clearly desired to counter that trend.
Her reputation established itself with a trilogy, set in the postwar years, exploring the aftermath of World War II as it affected an upper middle-class family in London. The volumes A State of Peace (1971), Private Life (1972), and Heaven on Earth (1975) recreate the drabness of bombed-out London, with its black marketeers, ration books, and hand-to-mouth existence. However, she showed herself willing to place novels in the future also. Summer People (1980) is a novel of social criticism set in a future laden with doom, with a society crumbling in on itself. As with much of her prose, the style is economic, with much use made of snatches of dialogue to create meaning. Relationships often seem temporary and even arbitrary. Her last novel, Figures in the Sand (1994) also has a futuristic setting, a late attempt to recreate the Roman Empire, with parallels between the decline of the first empire and this one. She also wrote a two-part science fiction story: The King Awakes (1987) and The Empty Throne (1988). At an earlier time the Sword and the Dream duo might have been classed as young adult fiction, but the popularity of this kind of fantasy as adult reading makes this more difficult to sustain.
Most of her novels, however, deal with affluent English middle-class society centered around long-standing marriages, the wives often having reached menopause. The women consistently show themselves stronger than the men, who frequently go to pieces in a crisis. Examples are Summer People and Magic (1983), where a parallel streams-of-consciousness technique leads to a complicated and ironic plot. The Italian Lesson (1985) is similar, using E. M. Forster’s Tuscany novels as a subtext, and substituting the present tense for the past. Other noteworthy novels are Dr. Gruber’s Daughter (1986) about a supposed daughter of Adolf Hitler by his niece, where the Nazi past is considered as something that could happen again. However, sufficient comedy and wit sustain a lighter style. In Life on the Nile (1989), the parallel lives of two Englishwomen are juxtaposed, one in the present, one in the Egypt of the 1920’s.
Elliott won the Southern Arts Award for Literature in 1981 for Secret Places, and was granted membership of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) in 1989.