Encyclopedia of Literature: Ellis’ [Edith Mary Pargeter] ‘Peters Biography to Portrait of Dora (Portrait de Dora)

Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern Fiction

Ellis Peters, pseudonym of Edith (Mary) Pargeter Biography - (1913–95), pseudonym of Edith (Mary) Pargeter, Hortensius, Friend of Nero

British crime writer and historical novelist, born in Shropshire, served in the WRNS during the Second World War, under her own name the author of a number of historical novels (Hortensius, Friend of Nero, 1937) and a prolific translator from Czech. Her first detective story, Fallen into the Pit (1951), featured the policeman George Felse and his family, who appear in most of her novels up to Rain…

1 minute read

Ann Petry (Ann Lane Petry) Biography - (1908–1997), (Ann Lane Petry), The Street, In Darkness and Confusion, The Country Place, The Narrows

African-American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and children's author, born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She studied pharmacy at the state university and worked in her parents' drugstore until marriage took her to Harlem in 1938. As a roving reporter for two Harlem newspapers, she was confronted by the endemic deprivation and despair of the black ghetto, and her response to what Sterli…

1 minute read

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner) Biography - (1902–83), (Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner), Leipziger Barock, Pioneers of the Modern Movement, Academies of Art

British historian of art and architecture, born in Leipzig, educated at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. His first book, Leipziger Barock (1928), dealt with the baroque houses of his native city. Of Jewish descent, he was forced by Nazi regulations to resign his lectureship at the University of G?ttingen in 1933, the year he moved to Britain. The reputation he gained wit…

1 minute read

Phenomenology - Studies in Human Time

is a philosophical movement most frequently associated with the work of Edmund Husserl (1859?1938) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1900?61). It seeks to ground human understanding in perception rather than abstraction, and devotes particular attention to the workings of consciousness. Its chief literary application has been through the socalled Geneva School, led by Georges Poulet, whose followers have…

less than 1 minute read

Caryl Phillips Biography - (1958– ), Strange Fruit, Where There Is Darkness, The Final Passage, A State of Independence, Higher Ground

West Indian playwright and novelist, born in St Kitts, West Indies, brought up in Leeds, educated at Queen's College, Oxford. His plays, including Strange Fruit (1981) and Where There Is Darkness (1982), are tense, naturalistic dramas dealing with Caribbean families who have settled in Britain. His novels The Final Passage (1985) and A State of Independence (1986) are more expansive and coolly det…

1 minute read

Jayne Anne Phillips Biography - (1952– ), Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter

American novelist and short-story writer, born in West Virginia, educated at the University of Iowa. Her first collection of stories, Black Tickets (1979), consists largely of monologues, experiments in voice and narrative, and innovative prose pieces; it was praised by Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan. Her evocation of the mores of small-town America and the vagrant lifestyle of its young has earne…

1 minute read

Stephen Phillips Biography - (1864–1915), Eremus, Christ in Hades, Poems, The New Inferno, Panama, Paolo and Francesca, Herod, Ulysses, Nero

British poet and verse-dramatist, born at Somerton, near Oxford, educated at Peterborough Grammar School. He became an actor with a Shakespearian company run by his cousin Frank R. Benson and played leading roles in numerous tragedies. His earlier collections of poetry include Eremus (1894) and Christ in Hades (1896); Poems (1898) gained him a considerable reputation and was reprinted fourteen tim…

1 minute read

Tom Pickard Biography - (1946– ), High on the Walls, The Order of Chance, Dancing under Fire, Custom and Exile

British poet, born in Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne; he attended local schools until the age of 16. In 1963 he founded the Morden Tower Book Room, where many notable poetry readings were held. He was directly instrumental in ending the obscurity that surrounded Basil Bunting, whom he sought out for advice when he began writing poetry. High on the Walls (1967) was his first collection of poems; am…

1 minute read

Marge Piercy Biography - (1936– ), Vida, Going Down Fast, Dance the Eagle Asleep, Woman on the Edge of Time

American novelist, poet, and political activist; born in Detroit, she received a Jewish upbringing. She was educated at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, and her political engagement formed in the context of student unrest during the 1960s. Piercy suffered physical abuse from the authorities during political demonstrations in New York City; such an attack is described in Vida…

1 minute read

Darryl Pinckney Biography - (1953– ), High Cotton, The New York Review of Books, Granta

African-American writer, educated at Columbia University. Like the unnamed hero of High Cotton (1992), the novel which established his reputation, Pinckney grew up the son of a monied African-American family. ?High Cotton? refers to cotton easy to pick?the implication being that the black bourgeoisie, the ?Also Chosen?, has been able to sidestep much of America's racial dispensations. To an extent…

less than 1 minute read

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero Biography - (1855–1934), Hamlet, £200 a Year, The Magistrate, Dandy Dick, The Schoolmistress, The Second Mrs Tanqueray

British dramatist, born in Islington, London; he received a scanty and spasmodic education, acquiring a knowledge of law in the office of his father, a London solicitor, and of elocution at the Birkbeck Institute. After an unsuccessful period as an actor?a Birmingham critic described his King in Hamlet as ?the worst Claudius the city has ever seen??he turned to writing at the instigation of Sir He…

1 minute read

Harold Pinter Biography - (1930– ), The Room, The Dumb Waiter, The Birthday Party, The Hothouse, The Caretaker, The Homecoming

British playwright, born in East London, the son of a tailor, educated at Hackney Downs Grammar School; he became a professional actor, performing in provincial repertory under the name David Baron. His first work, The Room, a one-act play, staged in Bristol in 1957, was followed by The Dumb Waiter (1958) and the London production of his first full-length work, The Birthday Party. This puzzling, s…

3 minute read

Robert M. Pirsig (Robert Maynard Pirsig) Biography - (1928– ), (Robert Maynard Pirsig), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Moby-Dick

American writer, born in Minneapolis, educated at the University of Minnesota. Pirsig became a technical writer for various firms, and a member of the board of directors of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in 1973. His enormously influential Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), a journey of self-discovery permeated by philosophical discussion, and startlingly original and disturbin…

1 minute read

Ruth Pitter Biography - (1897–92), New Age, First Poems, Persephone in Hades, A Mad Lady's Garland

English poet, born in Ilford, Essex. Among other occupations, she painted giftware and furniture for a London business in which she was a partner, and worked as a broadcaster and popular journalist. In 1955 she became the first woman to receive the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Pitter's early poems were published in the New Age in 1911. First Poems (1920) appeared with a preface by Hilaire Belloc…

less than 1 minute read

Pit, The - The Octopus, The Rise of Silas Lapham, The Titan, The Pit, The Wolf

a novel by Frank Norris, published in 1903, the second volume in Norris's projected trilogy, ?The Epic of the Wheat?, the first volume of which is The Octopus (1901). Norris drew on historical fact for his story: the attempt in 1897 of Joseph Leiter to corner the Chicago wheat market. In the novel Leiter becomes Curtis Jadwin, a tycoon with a farm background who has made a fortune in real estate a…

1 minute read

Fiona Pitt-Kethley Biography - (1954– ), London, Rome, The Tower of Glass, Sky Ray Lolly, Private Parts, The Perfect Man, Dogs

British poet, born in Edgware; she studied at Chelsea College of Art and subsequently worked as a film extra, theatre usherette, and bric-?-brac dealer. Her earlier publications as a poet include London (1984), Rome (1985), and The Tower of Glass (1985); their historical orientation differs considerably from the emphatically modern idioms of her better-known work. Sky Ray Lolly (1986) brought her …

1 minute read

Sol T. Plaatje (Solomon Tshekiso Plaatje) Biography - (1878–1932), (Solomon Tshekiso Plaatje), The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje, The Tswana Gazette

South African novelist, linguist, journalist, and statesman, born near Boshof, Orange Free State. He served as an interpreter with the British Army during the Anglo-Boer War (1899?1902). The Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje (1973), written during the siege of Mafeking, is an important document about the experience of black Africans in that conflict. From 1901 to 1908 Plaatje lived in Mafeking and …

1 minute read

Jean Plaidy, pseudonym of Eleanor Hibbert Biography - (c.1910–93), pseudonym of Eleanor Hibbert, Daughter of Anna, The Silk Vendetta, The India Fan

British historical novelist, whose other pseudonyms included Eleanor Burford, Ellalice Tate, Elbur Ford, Victoria Holt, and Philippa Carr. Her first novel (as Eleanor Burford), Daughter of Anna (1941), was followed by many others. As Victoria Holt, her later works include The Silk Vendetta (1987), The India Fan (1988), and The Captive (1990). As Philippa Carr her novels include The Pool at St Bran…

1 minute read

Planet - Planet

a literary and political periodical begun in 1970 by Ned Thomas, who remained its editor until 1990. During the 1970s its cultural perspective was determined by its prevailing concern with Welsh nationalism, which extended to an active interest in the affairs of other European linguistic minorities. The magazine's campaigns, which repeatedly made it the subject of controversy, included support for…

1 minute read

David Plante Biography - (1940– ), The Ghost of Henry James, Slides, The Francoeur Family, The Family, The Woods, The Country

American novelist, born in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended the University of Louvain in Belgium. His first novel, The Ghost of Henry James (1970), was followed by Slides in 1971; both paid tribute to the great masters of American literature such as James and Hawthorne. Much of his fiction, such as the autobiographical series of novels The Francoeur Family, including The Family (1978), The Wo…

1 minute read

Sylvia Plath Biography - (1932–63), Mademoiselle, The Bell Jar, The Colossus, Ariel, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Collected Poems

American poet and novelist, born in Boston, Massachusetts, educated at Wellesley High School and Smith College. She was appointed a student guest-editor for Mademoiselle magazine in 1953, an interlude which strongly informs her novel The Bell Jar (1963). In 1955 she took up a Fulbright Scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she met Ted Hughes. They were married in 1956 and went to Americ…

2 minute read

Playboy of the Western World, The

a play by J. M. Synge, first performed and published in 1907. This involves the impact on a drab, remote Irish village of Christy Mahon, a frightened young man on the run after giving his father what he believes to have been a death-blow with a hoe, and the impact on him of the village's admiration of this supposedly heroic act. Pegeen Mike, daughter of the local publican and fianc?e of the coward…

1 minute read

William Plomer (William Charles Franklyn Plomer) Biography - (1903–73), (William Charles Franklyn Plomer), Voorslag, Turbott Wolfe, The Case Is Altered, The Invaders, Museum Pieces

South African poet and novelist, born in Northern Transvaal, educated at Rugby School. After returning to South Africa, he founded the magazine Voorslag (?Whiplash?) with Roy Campbell in 1926. He eventually settled in England and became the principal reader for the publishers Jonathan Cape in 1937. Turbott Wolfe (1926), his first novel, was remarkable for its angry denunciations of racism. His oth…

1 minute read

Plot - Aspects of the Novel, Oedipus Rex, The Alchemist, Tom Jones, fabula, sjuzet, Sjuzet

and Story need to be thought of together, since even in conflicting current uses the words continue to function as a pair. Sometimes they are used interchangeably, as simple synonyms: ?retelling the story? would be exactly the same as a ?plot summary?. At other times they are clearly distinguished. E. M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel (1927), thought a plot was ?an organism of a higher type? tha…

1 minute read

Plough and the Stars, The

a play by Sean O'Casey, performed and published in 1926. Set in a Dublin tenement during the nationalist uprising of Easter 1916, this tragi-comedy centrally involves Nora Clitheroe, a young wife who loses both her baby and her mind when her husband, Jack, is killed in the fighting. However, the play's tone and meaning are largely determined by such characters as Fluther Good, Ginnie Gogan, Peter …

1 minute read

Plumed Serpent, The - Lady Chatterley's Lover, coups d'état

a novel by D. H. Lawrence, published in 1926. Lawrence's Mexican novel was begun in spring 1923 and finished in February 1925. Lawrence wrote it whilst travelling through Mexico and the USA. Today it is perhaps his most controversial work and certainly his most openly ideological. After its publication there is evidence that he regretted many of the opinions in it, and his next and last book, Lady…

1 minute read

PN Review - Poetry Nation, PN Review

a British-based periodical dedicated to the publication and criticism of poetry, begun by C. B. Cox and Michael Schmidt in 1973 in twice-yearly hardback form as Poetry Nation; the first issue stated the editors' intention of providing ?a magazine that expresses and explores the growing consensus among poets? in favour of ?clearly formal writing, a common bridling at vacuous public and private rhet…

1 minute read

Poetry - Poetry, Little Review

?a magazine of verse?, as its subtitle states, founded in Chicago in 1912 by Harriet Monroe, the author of several collections of verse, who had organized a highly efficient programme of funding in 1911. Her advance publicity for the venture drew it to the attention of Ezra Pound in time for him to be listed as the magazine's foreign correspondent in its first issue. By 1913 Pound had established …

1 minute read

Poetry London - Poetry London, Poetry London—New York, Poetry London/Apple Magazine

a magazine founded in 1939 by Tambimuttu in collaboration with Anthony Dickens, Keidrych Rhys, and Dylan Thomas, and generally regarded as the most important forum for new poetry of the 1940s. Tambimuttu edited the first fifteen editions. His eclectic editorial policy, which Geoffrey Grigson viewed as an enthusiastic lack of discrimination, made Poetry London hospitable to work by a remarkable ran…

1 minute read

Poetry Review - Poetical Gazette, Gazette, Poetry Review, Poetry Review's

the magazine of the Poetry Society, founded by W. G. Kyle in 1909, when the Poetical Gazette was introduced to disseminate information about readings and other events. In 1911 Harold Monro was approached by the Society, who wished him to edit the Gazette; Monro was out of sympathy with the marked conservatism of the senior members, who included Sir Henry Newbolt and Herbert Trench, and proposed fo…

1 minute read

Poetry Wales - Anglo-Welsh Review, Poetry Wales

a magazine of poetry and criticism founded in 1965 by Meic Stephens, who wished to strengthen the cultural identity of the English-speaking Welsh and to provide a forum for the publication and critical evaluation of Anglo-Welsh poetry; the Anglo-Welsh Review was already in existence, but was felt by Stephens and others of nationalist sympathies to be insufficiently Welsh in character. Stephens was…

1 minute read

Point Counter Point - Zeitgeist, Antic Hay, à clef

a novel by A. Huxley, published in 1928. Generally viewed as Huxley's fictional masterpiece, for its masterly interplay of discussions about the Zeitgeist and a sophisticated structural technique, it became a contemporary bestseller and remains the best example of the discussion-novel-of-ideas which he appropriated as an ideal satiric vehicle. Like Antic Hay, though on a larger scale, the book is …

1 minute read

Stephen Poliakoff Biography - (1952– ), Clever Soldiers, Hitting Town, City Sugar, Shout Across the River, American Days, The Summer Party

British dramatist, born in London, educated at Cambridge University. After achieving a modest success with Clever Soldiers (1974), about public schoolboys and Oxford undergraduates in somewhat confused conflict with a society that eventually leads them to the killing fields of the Great War, he produced a series of highly distinctive plays, wryly melancholy in tone. Typically, they involve contemp…

1 minute read

Sharon Pollock Biography - (1936– ), Walsh, The Komagata Maru Incident, Blood Relations, A Compulsory Option, Generations

Canadian dramatist, born in Fredericton, educated at the University of New Brunswick. Pollock is generally regarded as a prairie dramatist. Her plays employ the documentary mode as a means of exploring social issues and forcing a reassessment of them. She first achieved recognition for Walsh (1973), which, like much of her later work, is about the mistreatment of minorities; it deals with the Cana…

1 minute read

Poor White

a novel by Sherwood Anderson, published in 1920. In the introduction to the novel, Anderson wrote that the actual ?hero? of the book was a small Ohio town, Bidwell, and that the people of the town, even the central character, Hugh McVey, the ?poor white? inventor, were additional. Hugh McVey, the shy telegraph operator, invents several mechanical items which are exploited by Steve Hunter who makes…

less than 1 minute read

James Pope-Hennessy (Richard James Arthur Pope-Hennessy) Biography - (1916–74), (Richard James Arthur Pope-Hennessy), Spectator, West Indian Summer, The Baths of Absalom

British biographer and writer on travel and history, born in London, the younger brother of Sir John Pope-Hennessy, educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He was secretary to the Governor of Trinidad and Tobago in 1939 and served in the Intelligence Corps throughout the Second World War. After two years as literary editor of the Spectator, he became a full-time writer in 1949. West Indian Summer (19…

1 minute read

Sir John Pope-Hennessy (Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy) Biography - (1913–94), (Sir John Wyndham Pope-Hennessy), Giovanni di Paolo, Sassetta, Sienese Quattrocento Painting

British art historian, born in London, the older brother of James Pope-Hennessy, educated at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1938 he joined the staff of the Victoria and Albert Museum, becoming Keeper of the Department of Architecture and Sculpture in 1954 and Director and Secretary in 1967. After two years as Director of the British Museum, he was appointed Professor of Fine Art at New York Universit…

1 minute read

Sir Karl R. Popper (Sir Karl Raimund Popper) Biography - (1902–94), (Sir Karl Raimund Popper), Logik der Forschung, The Logic of Scientific Discovery

British philosopher of science and political philosopher, born in Vienna, educated at the University of Vienna. He was acquainted with Rudolf Carnap and other members of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists, with whom he disagreed over the status of inductive reasoning. He left Vienna as the ascendancy of Nazism intensified and lectured at Canterbury University College, Christchurch, New Zeala…

1 minute read

popular culture - for, Mythologies, Rabelais and His World, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture

often overlaps, and/or is confused with, ?folk culture?, ?working-class culture?, ?mass culture?, ?consumer culture?, and ?sub-culture?. The history of changing and contested semantics of the term ?popular culture? tracks not only the complex social and historical developments from so-called ?traditional? communities (?pre-industrial?, ?oral?) through the industrial revolution to late capitalism. …

3 minute read

Hal Porter Biography - (1911–84), A Bachelor's Children, Mr Butterfly, and Other Tales of Japan

Australian writer, born in Melbourne. A stylish detachment characterizes his short stories, the first volume of which was published in 1942. Of six collections, A Bachelor's Children (1962), Mr Butterfly, and Other Tales of Japan (1970), and Fredo Fuss Love Life (1974) received most critical attention. Sharp, extravagant of detail, the stories are realistic depictions of everyday life. Porter's fi…

1 minute read

Katherine Anne Porter Biography - (1890–1980), Ship of Fools, Flowering Judas, The Leaning Tower

American fiction writer, born in Indian Creek, Texas. Though her output was slim, Porter is widely acclaimed as one of the finest American prose stylists of her generation. Porter lived a richly picaresque life that has become the stuff of legend, even though she herself took the view that writers' biographies are of little importance. She supported herself as an entertainer in Texas, worked as a …

1 minute read

Peter Porter (Peter Neville Frederick Porter) Biography - (1929– ), (Peter Neville Frederick Porter), Courier-Mail, Once Bitten, Twice Bitten

Australian poet, born in Brisbane, where he became a reporter with the Courier-Mail in 1947. In 1951 he emigrated to Britain and worked in various capacities until 1968, when he became a freelance writer and broadcaster. The disciplined experimentation and social orientation of his early work reflected his association with the Group. Once Bitten, Twice Bitten (1961) and Poems Ancient & Modern (196…

2 minute read

Portnoy's Complaint

a novel by Philip Roth, published in 1969. An immediate bestseller, this novel scandalized moralists with its focus on a protagonist who displays an insatiable desire for sexual adventure and erotic novelty. It further caused anger among Jewish circles with its unflattering contemporary clich?s about Jews. The novel charts Alexander Portnoy's attempt to break the Oedipal bond with his mother, Soph…

less than 1 minute read