Angela Carter

{{for|the Australian artist born as Angela Carter|Angela Valamanesh}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Angela Carter

| image = Angela Carter.jpg

| caption =

| pseudonym =

| birth_name = Angela Olive Stalker

| birth_date = {{birth date|1940|5|7|df=y}}

| birth_place = Eastbourne, England

| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1992|2|16|1940|5|7}}

| death_place = London, England

| alma_mater = University of Bristol

| occupation = Novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist

| period =

| genre =

| subject =

| movement =

| signature =

| website = {{URL|www.angelacarter.co.uk}}

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage|Paul Carter|1960|1972|end=div}}
{{marriage|Mark Pearce
|1977}}

}}

| children = 1

}}

Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, {{née}} Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works. She is mainly known for her book The Bloody Chamber (1979). In 1984, her short story "The Company of Wolves" was adapted into a film of the same name. In 2008, The Times ranked Carter tenth in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/the-50-greatest-british-writers-since-1945-ws3g69xrf90 The 50 greatest British writers since 1945]. 5 January 2008. The Times. Retrieved on 27 July 2018. In 2012, Nights at the Circus was selected as the best ever winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/dec/06/angela-carter-uk-oldest-literary-prize |title=Angela Carter named best ever winner of James Tait Black award |work=The Guardian |first=Alison|last= Flood |date=6 December 2012 |access-date=6 December 2012}}

Biography

Born Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, to Sophia Olive (née Farthing; 1905–1969), a cashier at Selfridge's, and journalist Hugh Alexander Stalker (1896–1988),{{Cite ODNB | url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-50941 |doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/50941|title = The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year = 2004}} Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother.http://www.angelacartersite.co.uk/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180307101014/http://angelacartersite.co.uk/ |date=7 March 2018 }} Retrieved 5 November 2015. After attending Streatham and Clapham High School, in south London, she began work as a journalist on The Croydon Advertiser,{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5899665/Angela-Carter.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100222000505/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5899665/Angela-Carter.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=22 February 2010|title=Angela Carter|date=17 February 1992|access-date=18 May 2018|via=www.telegraph.co.uk}} following in her father's footsteps. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/10/angelacarter |title=Angela Carter - Biography |newspaper=The Guardian |date=22 July 2008 |access-date=24 June 2014}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/angela-carters-feminist-mythology|title=Angela Carter's Feminism|website=www.newyorker.com|date=6 March 2017 }}

She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter, ultimately divorcing in 1972. In 1969, she used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, where, she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982), that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised".{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/22/the-invention-of-angela-carter-a-biography-by-edmund-gordon-review|title=The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography by Edmund Gordon – review|last=Hill|first=Rosemary|date=22 October 2016|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=29 September 2017|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}} She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and in a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974). Evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972).

She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer-in-residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977, Carter met Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son and whom she eventually married shortly before her death in 1992.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/01/angela-carter-far-from-fairytale-edmund-gordon|title=Angela Carter: Far from the fairytale|first=Edmund|last=Gordon|date=1 October 2016|access-date=13 May 2019|newspaper=The Guardian}} In 1979, both The Bloody Chamber, and her feminist essay The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/feb/16/from-fifty-shades-to-buffy-what-we-owe-to-angela-carter|newspaper=The Guardian|title=Angela's influence: what we owe to Carter|first=John |last=Dugdale|date= 16 February 2017}} were published. In The Bloody Chamber, she rewrote traditional fairy tales so as to subvert their essentializing tendencies. In her 1985 interview with Helen Cagney, Carter said, “So, I suppose that what interests me is the way these fairy tales and folklore are methods of making sense of events and certain occurrences in a particular way.”(Watts, H. C. (1985). An Interview with Angela Carter. Bête Noir, 8, 161-76.). Sarah Gamble, therefore, argued that Carter’s book is a manifestation of her materialism, that is, “her desire to bring fairy tale back down to earth in order to demonstrate how it could be used to explore the real conditions of everyday life".{{Cite journal |last=Gamble |first=Sarah |date=2001 |title=The Fiction of Angela Carter |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-08966-3 |journal=The Fiction of Angela Carter |volume=1 |doi=10.1007/978-1-137-08966-3|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }} In The Sadeian Woman, according to the writer Marina Warner, Carter "deconstructs the arguments that underlie The Bloody Chamber. It's about desire and its destruction, the self-immolation of women, how women collude and connive with their condition of enslavement. She was much more independent-minded than the traditional feminist of her time."Marina Warner, speaking on Radio Three's the Verb, February 2012

As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg.{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-shaking-a-leg-by-angela-carter-6699565.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-shaking-a-leg-by-angela-carter-6699565.html |archive-date=7 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Book of a Lifetime: Shaking a Leg, By Angela Carter|date=10 February 2012|work=The Independent|access-date=29 September 2017|language=en-GB}}{{cbignore}} She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her works of fiction have been adapted for film: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1967). She was actively involved in both adaptations;{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/live/2017/feb/21/angela-carter-webchat-with-biographer-edmund-gordon-post-your-questions-now|title=Angela Carter webchat – your questions answered by biographer Edmund Gordon|first=Sam|last=Jordison|date=24 February 2017|access-date=13 May 2019|newspaper=The Guardian}} her screenplays were subsequently published in The Curious Room, a collection of her dramatic writings, including radio scripts and a libretto for an opera based on Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Carter's novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature. Her 1991 novel Wise Children offers a surreal ride through British theatre and music hall traditions.

Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/03/sarah-waters-angela-carter |title=My hero: Angela Carter |first=Sarah|last= Waters |newspaper=The Guardian |date=3 October 2009 |access-date=24 June 2014}}Michael Dirda, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-unconventional-life-of-angela-carter--prolific-author-reluctant-feminist/2017/03/07/e32ab7e4-ff86-11e6-8f41-ea6ed597e4ca_story.html "The Unconventional Life of Angela Carter - prolific author, reluctant feminist,"] The Washington Post, 8 March 2017. At the time of her death, she had started work on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens; only a synopsis survives.{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/jan/29/theatre.angelacarter?gusrc=rss&feed=books | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=The greatest swinger in town | first=Susannah | last=Clapp | author-link=Susannah Clapp | date=29 January 2006 | access-date=25 April 2010}}

Works

=Novels=

Shadow Dance (1966, also known as Honeybuzzard)
The Magic Toyshop (1967)
Several Perceptions (1968)
Heroes and Villains (1969)
Love (1971)
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972, also known as The War of Dreams)
The Passion of New Eve (1977)
Nights at the Circus (1984)
Wise Children (1991)

=Short fiction collections=

Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974; also published as Fireworks: Nine Stories in Various Disguises and Fireworks)
The Bloody Chamber (1979)
"The Bridegroom" (1983) (Uncollected short story)
Black Venus (1985; published as Saints and Strangers in the United States)
American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993)
Burning Your Boats (1995)

=Poetry collections=

Five Quiet Shouters (1966)
Unicorn (1966)
Unicorn: The Poetry of Angela Carter (2015)

=Dramatic works=

Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Four Radio Plays (1985)
The Curious Room: Plays, Film Scripts and an Opera (1996) (includes Carter's screenplays for adaptations of The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop; also includes the contents of Come Unto These Golden Sands: Four Radio Plays)

=Children's books=

The Donkey Prince (1970, illustrated by Eros Keith)
Miss Z, the Dark Young Lady (1970, illustrated by Eros Keith)
Comic and Curious Cats (1979, illustrated by Martin Leman)
Moonshadow (1982) illustrated by Justin Todd
Sea-Cat and Dragon King (2000, illustrated by Eva Tatcheva)

=Non-fiction=

The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography (1979)
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings (1982)
Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (1992)
Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism and Writing (1997)

She wrote two entries in "A Hundred Things Japanese" published in 1975 by the Japan Culture Institute. {{ISBN|0-87040-364-8}} It says "She has lived in Japan both from 1969 to 1971 and also during 1974" (p. 202).

=As editor=

Wayward Girls and Wicked Women: An Anthology of Subversive Stories (1986)
The Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1990) a.k.a. The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book
The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1992) a.k.a. Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen: Fairy Tales From Around the World (1993)
Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales (2005) (collects the two books above)

=As translator=

The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault (1977)
Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales (1982) illustrated by Michael Foreman (Perrault stories with two by Leprince de Beaumont)

=Film adaptations=

The Company of Wolves (1984) adapted by Carter with Neil Jordan from her short story of the same name, "Wolf-Alice" and "The Werewolf"
The Magic Toyshop (1987) adapted by Carter from her novel of the same name, and directed by David Wheatley

=Radio plays=

Vampirella (1976) written by Carter and directed by Glyn Dearman for BBC. Formed the basis for the short story "The Lady of the House of Love".
Come Unto These Yellow Sands (1979)
The Company of Wolves (1980) adapted by Carter from her short story of the same name, and directed by Glyn Dearman for BBC
Puss-in-Boots (1982) adapted by Carter from her short story and directed by Glyn Dearman for BBC
A Self-Made Man (1984)

=Television=

The Holy Family Album (1991)
Omnibus: Angela Carter's Curious Room (1992)

Analysis and critique

{{cite magazine |last=Acocella|first= Joan |author-link=Joan Acocella |date=13 March 2017 |title=Metamorphoses : how Angela Carter became feminism's great mythologist |department=The Critics. Books |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=93 |issue=4 |pages=71–76 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/angela-carters-feminist-mythology}} Published online as "Angela Carter's feminist mythology".
Crofts, Charlotte, "Curiously downbeat hybrid" or "radical retelling"? – Neil Jordan's and Angela Carter's The Company of Wolves. In Cartmell, Deborah, I. Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (eds), Sisterhoods Across the Literature Media Divide, London: Pluto Press, 1998, pp. 48–63.]
Crofts, Charlotte, Anagrams of Desire: Angela Carter's Writing for Radio, Film and Television. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Crofts, Charlotte, [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230595873_5 ‘The Other of the Other’: Angela Carter's ‘New-Fangled’ Orientalism]. In Munford, Rebecca Re-Visiting Angela Carter Texts, Contexts, Intertexts. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 87–109.
Dimovitz, Scott A., [https://www.routledge.com/products/9781472469663 Angela Carter: Surrealist, Psychologist, Moral Pornographer]. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Dimovitz, Scott A. "I Was the Subject of the Sentence Written on the Mirror: Angela Carter's Short Fiction and the Unwriting of the Psychoanalytic Subject". Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 21.1 (2010): 1–19.
Dimovitz, Scott A., "Angela Carter's Narrative Chiasmus: The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Passion of New Eve". Genre XVII (2009): 83–111.
Dimovitz, Scott A., "Cartesian Nuts: Rewriting the Platonic Androgyne in Angela Carter's Japanese Surrealism". FEMSPEC: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Journal, 6:2 (December 2005): 15–31.
Dmytriieva, Valeriia V., "Gender Alterations in English and French Modernist 'Bluebeard' Fairytale". English Language and literature studies, 6:3. (2016): 16–20.
{{cite journal |last=Enright|first=Anne |author-link=Anne Enright |date=17 February 2011 |title=Diary |journal=London Review of Books |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=38–39 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n04/anne-enright/diary}}
Gordon, Edmund, [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1092026/the-invention-of-angela-carter The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography]. London: Chatto & Windus, 2016.
Kérchy, Anna, [http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?bookid=7575&pc=9 Body-Texts in the Novels of Angela Carter. Writing from a Corporeagraphic Perspective]. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.
Milne, Andrew, [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927215510/http://www.manuscrit.com/catalogue/textes/fiche_texte.asp?idOuvrage=6256 The Bloody Chamber d'Angela Carter], Paris: Editions Le Manuscrit, Université, 2006.
Milne, Andrew, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080404234213/http://www.manuscrit.com/catalogue/textes/fiche_texte.asp Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber: A Reader's Guide], Paris: Editions Le Manuscrit Université, 2007.
Munford, Rebecca (ed.), [https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403997050/ Re-Visiting Angela Carter Texts, Contexts, Intertexts] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211015215551/https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403997050 |date=15 October 2021 }}. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Tonkin, Maggie, Angela Carter and Decadence: Critical Fictions/Fictional Critiques. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Topping, Angela, [http://www.greenex.co.uk/ Focus on The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories]. London: The Greenwich Exchange, 2009.
Wisker, Gina. "At Home all was Blood and Feathers: The Werewolf in the Kitchen - Angela Carter and Horror". In Clive Bloom (ed), Creepers: British Horror and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century. London and Boulder CO: Pluto Press, 1993, pp. 161–75.

Commemoration

English Heritage unveiled a blue plaque at Carter's final home at 107, The Chase in Clapham, South London in September 2019. She wrote many of her books in the sixteen years she lived at the address, as well as tutoring the young Kazuo Ishiguro.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/11/angela-carters-carnival-london-home-receives-blue-plaque|title=Angela Carter's 'carnival' London home receives blue plaque|last=Flood|first=Alison|date=11 September 2019|work=The Guardian|access-date=11 September 2019|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}

The British Library acquired the Angela Carter Papers in 2008, a large collection of 224 files and volumes containing manuscripts, correspondence, personal diaries, photographs, and audio cassettes.[http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:IAMS032-000000450 Angela Carter Papers Catalogue]{{Dead link|date=January 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} the British Library. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

Angela Carter Close in Brixton is named after her.{{cite web | url=https://www.annethornearchitects.com/#/angela-carter-close/ | title=Anne thorne architects LLP }}

References

External links

{{official website |https://www.angelacarter.co.uk}}
{{IMDb name|141462}}
[http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/angela-carter.html Angela Carter's radio work]
[https://www.bl.uk/people/angela-carter Angela Carter] at the British Library
{{british council|angela-carter}}
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12245.shtml BBC interview] (video, 25 June 1991, 25 mins)
{{Books and Writers |id=acarter |name=Angela Carter}}
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7656621/Angela-Carter-remembered.html Angela Carter remembered], Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2010
{{isfdb name|id=Angela_Carter|name=Angela Carter}}
[http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=024M-C0095X0397XX-0100V0.xml Angela Carter in conversation] with Elizabeth Jolley, British Library (audio, 1988, 53 mins)
[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v02/n19/angela-carter/colette Angela Carter essay] on Colette, London Review of Books, Vol. 2 No. 19 · 2 October 1980
[http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/a-conversation-with-angela-carter-by-anna-katsavos/ "A Conversation with Angela Carter"] by Anna Katsavos, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Fall 1994, Vol. 14.3