Brigid Brophy
Brigid Brophy was a notable English author, born in London in 1929, who garnered attention for her diverse body of work, including novels, essays, and critical analyses. She was educated at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, but faced expulsion due to moral violations. Brophy's literary career began in the 1950s with her first collection of short stories, “The Crown Princess, and Other Stories,” followed by her debut novel, “Hackenfeller's Ape,” which centered on a compassionate zoologist's quest to save an ape. Throughout her life, Brophy produced various works, including the acclaimed “The Snow Ball,” and she was known for her controversial views on topics such as vivisection and religious education in schools.
A feminist and pacifist, Brophy's writing often explored human behavior and emotional conflicts, drawing inspiration from literary giants like George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Despite facing criticism for her sentimental style, she earned several literary awards, including a fellowship from the Royal Society of Literature. Brophy's later years were marked by her battle with multiple sclerosis, an experience she candidly addressed in her nonfiction work. Her legacy continues to influence discussions on literature and social issues.
Subject Terms
Brigid Brophy
British novelist and short fiction writer.
- Born: June 12, 1929
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: August 7, 1995
- Place of death: Louth, Lincolnshire, England
Biography
Brigid Brophy was born in London, England, in 1929 to well-known novelist John Weare Brophy and to teacher Charis Grundy Brophy. She attended St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, between 1947 and 1948, but was expelled for what was then termed sexual offenses against the university’s moral code. In 1954, Brophy married Michael Vincent Levey, the former director of the National Gallery in London; the couple had one daughter, Katharine Jane. In the early 1980s, Brophy fell victim to multiple sclerosis, and she wrote about the disease in Baroque-’n’-Roll, and Other Essays (1987).
Always a prodigious writer and greatly inspired by the works of George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce, Brophy produced novels, essays, literary criticism, biographies, and drama in the 1950s, and while working as a shorthand typist in London and as a television and radio broadcaster in the 1960s and the 1970s. Her first collection of short fiction, The Crown Princess, and Other Stories (1953), was shortly followed by her first novel,Hackenfeller’s Ape (1953). The novel was written after a trip to the London zoo and concerns a sympathetic zoologist who frees an ape after he finds the animal is scheduled to be sent into space as part of an experiment. Her sensual novel Flesh (1962), draws on the courtship and marriage of two London Jews reacting against their vulgar parents. Brophy called her 1963 novella The Finishing Touch, which focuses on an English princess during her stay at a French Riviera finishing school, a "lesbian fantasy." The work received both literary acclaim and public scorn. Her novel The Snow Ball, published in 1964 and televised by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) the same year, was a comedy of manners highlighting middle-class stuffiness and was influenced by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni.
Brophy is also highly regarded for her nonfiction. One of her most controversial critical analyses, Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without (1967), took classic works of fiction to task, including Beowulf, Hamlet, and Pilgrim’s Progress. Numbered among Brophy’s awards are the 1954 Cheltenham Literary Festival prize for a first novel for Hackenfeller’s Ape, and the 1962 London Magazine prize for Black Ship to Hell. In 1973, she was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and received the Tony Godwin Award in 1985.
Brophy has been both criticized and praised for her highly sentimental style. Throughout her life she remained a controversial feminist and pacifist, who spoke out against religious education in schools, vivisection, pornography, and other issues. With a great deal of zeal, she observed human behavior and wrote of the emotional conflicts involved in understanding humanity and God.
Author Works
Drama:
The Burglar, pr. 1967; pb. 1968
Long Fiction:
Hackenfeller's Ape, 1953
The King of a Rainy Country, 1957
Flesh, 1962
The Finishing Touch, 1963
The Snow Ball, 1964
In Transit: An Heroi-Cyclic Novel, 1969 (In Transit: An Heroicycle Novel)
The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl, 1973 (The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl: A Novel and Some Fables)
Pussy Owl: Superbeast, 1976 (Hilary Hayton, illustrator)
Palace Without Chairs, 1978 (Palace Without Chairs: A Baroque Novel)
Nonfiction:
Black Ship to Hell, 1962
Mozart the Dramatist: A New View of Mozart, His Operas, and His Age, 1964
Don't Never Forget: Collected Views and Reviews, 1966
Religious Education in State Schools, 1967
Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without, 1967 (with Michael Levey and Charles Osborne)
Black and White: A Portrait of Aubrey Beardsley, 1968
Brigid Brophy on Vivisection, 1970
The Longford Threat to Freedom, 1972
Prancing Novelist: A Defence of Fiction in the Form of a Critical Biography in Praise of Ronald Firbank, 1973
Beardsley and His World, 1976
The Prince and the Wild Geese, 1982 (pictures by Gregoire Gagarin)
The Guide to Public Lending Right, 1983
Baroque-'n'-Roll, and Other Essays, 1987
Reads, 1989 (Reads: A Collection of Essays, Cardinal)
Short Fiction:
The Crown Princess, and Other Stories, 1953
Bibliography
Axelrod, Mark. "Mozart, Moonshots, and Monkey Business in Brigid Brophy's Hackenfeller's Ape." Review of Contemporary Fiction, vol. 15, no. 3, Fall, pp. 18–22. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rih&AN=A62097&site=eds-live. This article provides analysis of Brophy's novel Hackenfeller's Ape, focusing on the use of music in the plot and interpretation of the theme of the relationship between science and art.
Caines, Michael. "Rediscovering Brigid Brophy." The Times Literary Supplement, 15 May 2015, timescolumns.typepad.com/stothard/2015/05/rediscovering-brigid-brophy.html. Accessed 19 Jun. 2017. Reevaluates Brophy as an important but little-recognized British intellectual, influential in both literature and animal rights.
Gordon, Giles. "Obituary: Brigid Brophy." Independent, 7 Aug. 1995, www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-brigid-brophy-1595286.html. Accessed 19 Jun. 2017. This profile by Brophy's literary agent discusses Brophy's personal life, including her battle with multiple sclerosis, in addition to her work as a novelist, nonfiction writer, cultural critic, and activist.
Hopkins, Chris. "The Neglect of Brigid Brophy." Review of Contemporary Fiction, vol. 15, no. 3, Fall95, p. 12. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9511305573&site=eds-live. Discusses why Brophy's work is not highly recognized or studied, including the difficulty in categorizing her works.
Lyall, Sarah. "Brigid Brophy is Dead at 66; Novelist, Critic, and Crusader." The New York Times, 9 Aug. 1995, www.nytimes.com/1995/08/09/obituaries/brigid-brophy-is-dead-at-66-novelist-critic-and-crusader.html. Accessed 19 Jun. 2017. This obituary gives an outline of Brophy's life and career, including her major works.