Biography Essay

Margaret Drabble's rise as one of the most important and well-known British novelists writing today has been steady and sure. She has received serious attention in Great Britain since the appearance of her first novel, and since the publication of The Needle's Eye (1972) she has established an impressive reputation in America as well. Behind her is a solid body of work including several volumes of criticism and biography, television and film scripts, and many pieces of short fiction and journalism, in addition to the novels that have brought her both popularity and critical acclaim. She is a traditionalist in form and a pioneer in subject. From her first novel, written immediately after graduation from Cambridge, Drabble has recorded the conflicting sensibilities of the "new," educated woman seeking her place in the modern world. Her heroines are selfaware, articulate, intelligent, career-concerned; they are also wives and mothers...