Brigid Brophy

Richard Canning has taught English Literature at five UK universities, mostly recently as a Professor of British and American Literature. He is the author or editor of nine books, including Gay Fiction Speaks and the Lambda Literary Editors’ Choice Award-winning Hear Us Out (both Columbia University Press, 2000 and 2004). Gerri Kimber is Visiting Professor in the Department of English at the University of Northampton. She is co-editor of Katherine Mansfield Studies, and the author of Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life (2025), Katherine Mansfield – The Early Years (2016), Katherine Mansfield and the Art of the Short Story (2015), and Katherine Mansfield: The View from France (2008). She is the Series Editor of the 4-volume Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Katherine Mansfield (2012–16). Together with Claire Davison, she has edited the 4-volume edition of Katherine Mansfield’s complete letters for EUP (2020–25).

Brigid Brophy, uniquely significant in postwar British literary, cultural and public intellectual life, is also its most egregiously neglected genius. This astonishing volume--which, as befits its subject, is honest, multifaceted and exploding with critical and imaginative intelligence--does a great and necessary service to her legacy, and to the history of twentieth-century letters.

• ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionRichard Canning1. Embodying the Fragments: A Reflection on the Reluctant Auto-Biography of Brigid BrophyPhoebe Blatton 2. Brigid Brophy’s Paradoxical World of ChildhoodMichael Bronski3. Introduction to ‘The Librarian and the Novel’John Dixon 4. The Librarian and the Novel: A Writer's ViewBrigid Brophy 5. Penetrating (the) Prancing Novelist Richard Canning 6. ‘Shavian that she was’John Dixon7. ‘Il faut que je vive’: Brigid Brophy and Animal Rights Gary Francione8. Brigid Brophy’s Phenomenology of Sex in Flesh and The Snow BallJonathan Gibbs9. Letter to BrigidRodney Hill10. Encoding Love: Hidden Correspondence in the Fiction of Brigid Brophy and Iris MurdochMiles Leeson 11. Heads and Boxes: A Prop Art Exhibition Collaboration by Brigid Brophy and Maureen DuffyJill Longmate 12. Brigid Brophy’s Prancing Novelist and Black and White: Experiments in BiographyPeter Parker 13. ‘Monster Cupid’: Brophy, Camp, and The Snow BallAllan Pero 14. A Felicitous Day for FishKim Stallwood15. Brigid Brophy: The Dissenting Feminist Carole Sweeney16. A Certain Detachment?Kate Levey Notes on ContributorsIndex