The lack of attention given to Elizabeth Taylor's work seems especially remarkable when one examines the number of novels and short stories she wrote. In twenty-seven years Taylor published eleven novels and four collections of short stories (her final novel, Blaming, was published posthumously in 1976). Any mention of Taylor's work usually comments on the fact that she has not earned the critical attention that she deserves, despite rather consistent, favorable reviews of her works. Robert Liddell's comment in Contemporary Novelists (1976) that "her work is quiet" may be a way of explaining how she could be widely read, well received, and yet rather obscure.

The quietness of Taylor's fiction crosses over into the facts of her life. The daughter of Oliver and Elsie Coles, she was born 3 July 1912 in Reading, Berkshire, England. Taylor was educated at the Abbey School, Reading, which she left in 1930. Afterward she worked as a...