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Antonia Fraser
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Antonia Fraser | |
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| Born | August 27, 1932 London, England |
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| Nationality |  English |
| Writing period | 1969– |
| Genres | biography, detective fiction |
| Spouse | Hugh Fraser (1956–1977) Harold Pinter (1980– ) |
| Website | AntoniaFraser.com |
Lady Antonia Fraser (Pinter), CBE (born August 27, 1932, as Antonia Margaret Caroline Pakenham) is a British author of history and novels, best known as Antonia Fraser for writing biographies and detective fiction, and the second wife of Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature.
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The daughter of the late Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, and his wife, the late Elizabeth Harman, Fraser's title (form of address) is "Lady Antonia". Like all her siblings, she became a child convert to the Catholic Church. She was educated at St. Mary's Convent, Ascot and Dragon School, Oxford,[1] before graduating from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, also her mother's alma mater.
In 1956, she married Scottish Catholic aristocrat and MP Sir Hugh Fraser (1918-1984), a Conservative Unionist MP in the House of Commons, sitting for Stafford. During her marriage to him, which ended in 1977, they had three sons, Benjamin ("Benjie"), Damian, and Orlando, and three daughters, Rebecca, Flora, and Natasha. Both Rebecca and Flora have written biographies. Benjamin works for JPMorgan, and Natasha has completed a life of Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel, published in 2002. Damian works for the investment banking firm UBS AG (formerly S. G. Warburg) in Mexico, as head of Latin American equities strategy. Orlando is a barrister specialising in commercial law. She has 16 grandchildren.
On October 22, 1975, Hugh and Antonia Fraser, together with Caroline Kennedy, who was visiting them at their Holland Park home, in Kensington, West London, were almost blown up by an IRA car bomb placed under the wheels of his Jaguar, which had been triggered to go off at 9am when he left the house; the bomb exploded prematurely when it was examined and accidentally set off by a passerby, the respected cancer researcher Dr Gordon Hamilton-Fairley, who was walking his dog. Hamilton-Fairley died. [2]
In 1975, Antonia Fraser met and began an affair with playwright Harold Pinter, who was then married to the actress Vivien Merchant, resulting in fodder for the British tabloid newspapers. In 1977, after she had been living with Pinter for two years, the Frasers' union was legally dissolved. Merchant spoke about her distress publicly to the press, which quoted her cutting remarks about her rival, but she resisted divorcing Pinter. In 1980, after Merchant signed divorce papers, Fraser and Pinter married. They still live in the Fraser family home in Holland Park. In some social circumstances, she uses her married name "Antonia Pinter".
Antonia Fraser's first major work was Mary, Queen of Scots (1969). Following that book, she published several other biographies, including Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973). She won the Wolfson History Award in 1984 for The Weaker Vessel, a study of women's lives in 17th century England. She was President of English PEN from 1988 to 89, and was Chairman of its Writers in Prison Committee.
She also writes detective novels, with the most popular involving a character named Jemima Shore. A television series based on these stories was aired in the UK in 1983.
More recently, Fraser published The Warrior Queens, the story of various military royal women since the days of Boadicea and Cleopatra. In 1992, a year after Alison Weir's book The Six Wives of Henry VIII, she published a book with the same title, which British historian Eric Ives cites as the more impartial account.[3]
She chronicled the life and times of Charles II in a well-reviewed 1979 eponymous biography. The book was cited as an influence on the 2003 BBC/A&E mini-series, Charles II: The Power & the Passion, in a featurette on the DVD, by Rufus Sewell who played the title character. Fraser has also served as the editor for many monarchical biographies, including those featured in the Kings and Queens of England and Royal History of England series. Fraser later published The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605.
Two of the most recent of her thirteen non-fiction books are Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001, 2002), which has been made into the film Marie Antoinette (2006), directed by Sofia Coppola, with Kirsten Dunst in the title role, and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).
From 1979 to 1990 she was a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 panel game My Word!, taking the chair for one season in 1983.
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1969)
- Wolfson History Prize
- Medallion of the Historical Association (2000)
- Crime Writers' Association Macallan Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction
- Franco-British Society's Enid McLeod Literary prize
- Mary, Queen of Scots (1969). ISBN 0-385-31129-X.
- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1970)
- Dolls (1973).
- Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (1973); also published as Cromwell: The Lord Protector. ISBN 0-8021-3766-0.
- King James VI and I (1974).
- The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England [Editor] (1975).
- King Charles II (1979); also published as Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration and Charles II. ISBN 0-7538-1403-X.
- The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-century England (1984).
- The Warrior Queens: Boadicea's Chariot (1988); also published as Warrior Queens: The Legends and Lives of Women Who Have Lead Their Nations in War.
- The Wives of Henry VIII (1992); also published as the Orion audio-book The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Nov. 2006). ISBN 0752889133.
- The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605 (1996); also published as Faith and Treason: The Gunpowder Plot. ISBN 0-385-47189-0.
- Marie Antoinette (2001). ISBN 0-385-48949-8. Also published as Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2002). ISBN 0-753-82140-0 (10). ISBN 978-075-382140-4 (13).
- Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006). ISBN 0-297-82997-1.
- Quiet as a Nun (1977).
- The Wild Island (1978).
- A Splash of Red (1981).
- Cool Repentance (1982).
- Oxford Blood (1985).
- Jemima Shore's First Case (1986).
- Your Royal Hostage (1987).
- The Cavalier Case (1990).
- Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave (1991).
- Political Death (1995).
- ^ Antonia Fraser: Q&A at Orion Publishing Group (UK publisher), accessed August 25, 2007.
- ^ "Timeline: 1974-75: The Year London Blew Up", Channel 4, website feature, accessed August 27, 2007.
- ^ Eric W. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, rev. ed. (1986; London: Blackwell's, 2004) xvii. ISBN 0631234799 (10). ISBN 978-0631234791 (13).
- Snowman, Daniel. "Lady Antonia Fraser." History Today 50.10 (October 2000): 26-28. (Excerpt; full article available to subscribers or pay-per-view customers.)
- Wroe, Nicholas. "Profile: The History Woman." The Guardian 24 August 2002, Arts & Humanities.
- "Timeline: 1974-75: The Year London Blew Up." Channel 4 website feature.
- "Antonia Fraser" – "Author Spotlight". Random House (US publisher). Accessed October 25, 2007.
- "Antonia Fraser" – Author webpage. Orion Publishing Group (UK publisher). Accessed October 25, 2007.
- AntoniaFraser.com – Official website of Antonia Fraser. © 2007 Antonia Fraser. All rights reserved. Accessed October 25, 2007.
- "Audio Interview with Antonia Fraser" (1984), conducted by Don Swaim, CBS Radio (New York).] Online posting of RealAudio and MP3 audio links. Accessed October 26, 2007. at Wired for Books.
- "Interviews: Antonia Fraser Peers into the Heart of Louis XIV". Broadcast on Weekend Edition Saturday, National Public Radio, November 11, 2006. Accessed January 11, 2007. (NPR audio accessible for both RealPlayer and Windows Media Player.)