Miranda Seymour Explained

Miranda Seymour
Birth Date:8 August 1948
Occupation:Writer, historian, biographer
Period:1975–present
Subject:Women writers, 20th century history
Awards:Pen Ackerley Award
Notable Works:In My Father's House, I Used to Live Here Once, Chaplin's Girl, The Bugatti Queen

Miranda Jane Seymour (born 8 August 1948) is an English literary critic, novelist and biographer of Robert Graves, Mary Shelley and Jean Rhys among others. Seymour is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.[1] She elected to resign from the Royal Society of Literature in December 2023.[2] She was formerly married to Andrew Sinclair, and Anthony Gottleib and is now married to Ted Lynch.[3]

Early life and education

Miranda Seymour was two years old when her parents moved into Thrumpton Hall,[4] the family ancestral home. She detailed her unconventional upbringing in her 2008 memoir In My Father's House: Elegy for an Obsessive Love (Simon & Schuster, UK[5]),[6] which appeared in the US as Thrumpton Hall (HarperCollins)[7] and won the 2008 Pen Ackerley Prize for Memoir of the Year.[8]

She studied at Bedford College, London, now part of Royal Holloway, University of London, earning a BA in English in 1981.

Career

Seymour began her literary career in 1975 with an historical novel, The Stones of Maggiare.[9] This was followed by six others concerned with Italy and Greece, including Daughter of Darkness, about Lucrezia Borgia,[10] and Medea (1982).[11]

In 1982, Seymour turned to biography, beginning with a group portrait of Henry James in his later years, entitled A Ring of Conspirators.[12] This was followed by biographies of Lady Ottoline Morrell,[13] Mary Shelley[14] and Robert Graves,[15] upon whom she also based a novel, The Telling,[16] and a radio play, Sea Music.

In 2001, she came across material on Hellé Nice, a forgotten French Grand Prix racing driver of the 1930s. After extensive research, Seymour published an acclaimed[17] book, The Bugatti Queen,[18] in 2004 about Nice's ultimately tragic life. This was followed by another life of an unconventional woman, that of 1930s film star, Virginia Cherrill. This was also based on a substantial archive in private ownership, and published as Chaplin's Girl: The Lives and Loves of Virginia Cherrill in 2009.[19]

In 2002, Seymour published a book about herbs: A Brief History of Thyme.[20] Noble Endeavours: Stories from England; Stories from Germany appeared in September 2013 from Simon & Schuster and was described as being a work of 'unfazed optimism'.[21] [22]

Seymour returned to biography with In Byron's Wake[23] (2018) which covered the lives of Lord Byron's wife and daughter, Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace.[24] [25] I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys was published by Harper Collins in 2022.[26] [27]

Seymour reviews and writes articles for newspapers and literary journals, including The Economist, The Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Spectator, and the New York Review of Books.

Formerly a Visiting Professor of English Studies at the University of Nottingham Trent,[28] Seymour is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at King's College London.[29]

Bibliography

Fiction

External links

Notes and References

  1. Faber author biography Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  2. News: Thorpe . Vanessa . Arts . Vanessa Thorpe . Correspondent . Media . 2024-01-27 . 'Radical moves' at Royal Society of Literature prompt rebellion . 2024-03-31 . The Observer . en-GB . 0029-7712.
  3. Web site: Administrator . 2020-11-01 . Literary Locations #80: Thrumpton Hall . 2024-05-18 . Nottingham City of Literature . en-GB.
  4. News: Quinn . Anthony . 2007-02-11 . Daddy, you tyrant . 2024-03-29 . The Observer . en-GB . 0029-7712.
  5. Book: Seymour, Miranda . In My Father's House . 2008 . Simon and Schuster . 9781471149696.
  6. News: Fergusson . James . In My Father's House: Elegy for an obsessive love, by Miranda Seymour . The Independent.
  7. News: Mcgrath . Charles . 27 July 2008 . House Proud . 11 August 2011 . The New York Times . 1.
  8. Web site: 12 June 2008 . Miranda Seymour Wins Ackerley Prze . English Pen. Org.
  9. Book: Seymour, Miranda . The Bride of Sforza . 1975 . Houghton Mifflin . 978-0-395-20290-6 . en.
  10. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Daughter of Shadows . 1977 . Coward, McCann & Geoghegan . 978-0-698-10784-7 . en.
  11. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Medea . 1982 . St. Martin's Press . 978-0-312-52530-9 . en.
  12. Book: Seymour, Miranda . A Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and His Literary Circle, 1895-1915 . 1989 . Houghton Mifflin . 978-0-395-51173-2 . en.
  13. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand Scale . 2024 . HarperCollins Publishers. . 9780008650353.
  14. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Mary Shelley . 2018-02-22 . Simon & Schuster UK . 978-1-4711-7416-2 . en.
  15. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Robert Graves: Life on the Edge . 2003 . Scribner . 978-0-7432-3219-7 . en.
  16. Book: Seymour, Miranda . The Telling . 2011-08-18 . Faber & Faber, Limited . 978-0-571-28152-7 . en.
  17. Web site: 2004-02-24 . The Bugatti Queen: In Search of a Motor Racing Legend by Miranda . 2024-04-18 . The Independent . en.
  18. Book: Seymour, Miranda . The Bugatti Queen . 2015-04-09 . Simon & Schuster UK . 978-1-4711-4970-2 . en.
  19. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Chaplin's Girl: The Life and Loves of Virginia Cherrill . 2009-05-05 . Simon and Schuster . 978-1-84737-737-1 . en.
  20. Book: Seymour, Miranda . A Brief History of Thyme and Other Herbs . 2002 . John Murray . 978-0-7195-6327-0 . en.
  21. Book: Seymour, Miranda . Noble Endeavours: The life of two countries, England and Germany, in many stories . 2013-08-29 . Simon and Schuster . 978-1-84737-826-2 . en.
  22. News: Noble Endeavours by Miranda Seymour – review . Richard . Davenport-Hines . . 2013-08-26 . 2024-05-26.
  23. Book: Seymour, Miranda . In Byron's Wake . 2018-03-22 . Simon & Schuster UK . 978-1-4711-3859-1 . en.
  24. News: Hughes . Kathryn . 2018-04-28 . In Byron's Wake and Ada Lovelace reviews – computing reputations . 2024-04-18 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  25. Web site: In Byron's Wake by Miranda Seymour – the Lord's ladies. Cooke. Rachel. 2018-03-18 . The Guardian . en . 2018-06-15.
  26. Book: Seymour, Miranda . I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys . 2022-05-12 . HarperCollins Publishers . 978-0-00-835560-9 . en.
  27. News: Cooke . Rachel . 2022-05-16 . I Used to Live Here Once by Miranda Seymour review – the troubled life of Jean Rhys . 2024-04-18 . The Guardian . en-GB . 0261-3077.
  28. Web site: Miranda Seymour . 2024-04-19 . David Higham Associates . en-US.
  29. Web site: Introducing our new Royal Literary Fund Fellows for 2023-24 – Centre for Doctoral Studies . 2024-04-19 . blogs.kcl.ac.uk.

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