Everything about Angela Carter totally explained
Angela Carter (
May 7,
1940 –
February 16,
1992) was an
English novelist and journalist, known for her
feminist,
magical realism and
science fiction works.
Biography
Born to Angela Olive Stalker in
Eastbourne, in
1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled
anorexia. She began work as a
journalist on the
Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the
University of Bristol where she studied
English literature.
Carter’s writings are intertextual webs. This influence can be seen in her novel
Wise Children, which is notable for its many
Shakespearean references. Carter was also interested in working with writings by male authors, such as the
Marquis de Sade (see
The Sadeian Woman) and
Charles Baudelaire (see her short story 'Black Venus'), amongst other literary forefathers. But she was also fascinated by the matriarchal, oral, storytelling tradition, rewriting several fairy tales for her short story collection
The Bloody Chamber, including "
Little Red Riding Hood", "
Bluebeard," and two reworkings of "
Beauty and the Beast."
She married twice, first in
1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In
1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her
Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and travel to Japan, living in
Tokyo for two years, where, she claims, she "learnt what it's to be a woman and became radicalised" (
Nothing Sacred (
1982)). She wrote about her experiences there in articles for
New Society and a collection of short stories, (
1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (
1972). She was there at the same time as
Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in
Empire of Signs (
1970).
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 married Mark Pearce.
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. 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 fictions have been adapted for the silver screen:
The Company of Wolves (
1984) and
The Magic Toyshop (
1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings,
The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of
Virginia Woolf's
Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled
The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as
Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her her controversial television documentary,
The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book,
Anagrams of Desire (
2003).
Her novel
Nights at the Circus won the 1984
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in
1992 after developing cancer. Below is an extract from her obituary published in
The Observer:
"She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and revelled in the diverse."
Works as author
Novels
» *
Shadow Dance (1966) aka
Honeybuzzard
*
The Magic Toyshop (1967)
» *
Several Perceptions (1968)
*
Heroes and Villains (1969)
» *
Love (1971)
*
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) aka
The War of Dreams » *
The Passion of New Eve (1977)
*
Nights at the Circus (1984)
» *
Wise Children (1991)
Short fiction
» * (1974) aka
Fireworks: Nine Stories in Various Disguises and
Fireworks
*
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979)
» *
Black Venus (1985) aka
Saints and Strangers
*
American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993)
» *
Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories (1995)
Poetry
» *
Five Quiet Shouters (1966)
*
Unicorn (1966)
Dramatic works
» *
Come Unto These Golden 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)
» *
The Holy Family Album (1991)
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
*
The Music People (1980) with Leslie Carter
» *
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 (1978)
*
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings (1982)
» *
Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (1992)
*
Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism and Writing (1997)
Works as editor
» *
Wayward Girls and Wicked Women: An Anthology of Subversive Stories (1986)
*
The Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1990) aka
The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book » *
The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1992) aka
Strange Things Still Sometimes Happen: Fairy Tales From Around the World (1993)
*
Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales (2005) (collects the two Virago Books above)
Works as translator
» *
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault (1977)
*
Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales (1982) (Perrault stories and two Madame Leprince de Beaumont stories)
Film adaptations
» *
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
Works on Angela Carter
» *
Milne, Andrew (2006), The Bloody Chamber d'Angela Carter, Paris: Le Manuscrit Université
*
Milne, Andrew (2007), Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber: A Reader's Guide, Paris: Le Manuscrit UniversitéFurther Information
Get more info on 'Angela Carter'.
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