At the beginning of 2024, having spent a pleasant three years reading the novels of Muriel Spark in chronological order (you can read my Best of Muriel Spark here), I decided to do the same with (much loved but never quite as respected as she should be) English writer Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor was first published earlier than Spark, in 1945 with At Mrs Lippincote’s, and her final novel, Blaming, appeared posthumously in 1976. She wrote only twelve novels (compared to Spark’s twenty-two) but here are five of my favourites.
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont remains Taylor’s most famous, and for many her finest, novel so rather than create artificial suspense through order of publication (this was her final novel to appear while she was alive), let its inclusion be immediately revealed. Set in a hotel (the Claremont) which has become a refuge for those find themselves old and alone in steadily reducing circumstances, it performs a wonderful balancing act. Its characters are privileged but constantly worry about money; there is a longing for Britain’s lost past but also an attachment to youth in the form of the penniless writer, Ludo; there is a clinging on to life as death approaches; and, above all, a constant wavering between comedy and tragedy. It is this that makes the novel a masterpiece as elements of farce brush shoulders with moments of real poignancy and the sometimes caricaturish characters suddenly live and breath in three dimensions. If you are only going to read one of Taylor’s novels, read this one.
A View of the Harbour
A View of the Harbour, published in 1947, is a novel of loneliness and lost dreams. Most characters live in isolation like Mrs Bracey, unable to leave her house and left to gaze out of the window (at the harbour), existing on the crumbs of conversation her daughter, Iris, deigns to give her. Iris, meanwhile, dreams of a better life but leaves that possibility to chance. The single long-lasting friendship between Tory and Beth is rather undermined by the fact that Tory is sleeping with Beth’s husband, a response to her own loneliness. The widowed Lily Wilson also makes compromises to avoid feeling alone. Ony Beth offers a sense of purpose, if not happiness, as she types out her latest novel, though her writing is as much a burden as a joy. The general air of desperation is leavened by Taylor’s wit, but this is a novel which looks at humanity with a rather jaundiced eye. Its final lines, where a sailor looks from the harbour to the town thinking “nothing has changed” reveals that Taylor is well aware the most important changes happen on the inside.
Angel
Angel, published in 1957, is probably Taylor’s funniest novel. Unlike Taylor’s other novels, its central character, the eponymous novelist Angel Deverall (her surname’s likeness to ‘devil’ clearly the first joke) is not so much flawed as grotesque. Angel is a storyteller rather than a reader as child, and is appalled to discover that, for some, her storytelling is simply lying. Her determination to become a novelist originates from a desire to avoid the future her mother has planned out for her as a servant. Her natural arrogance is evident when she refuses to make any changes to her first novel which, unforeseen by anyone but her, becomes a remarkable success. Soon she is writing one novel a year and has the wealth she dreamed of, buying the house where she was once earmarked to be a maid (if she was lucky). As is generally the case with Taylor, behind the comic frontage lies the tragedy of a woman where the very qualities which lead to her success are also the cause of her downfall.
In a Summer Season
In a Summer Season, originally published in 1961, is the most lovestruck of Taylor’s novels. At its centre is Kate Heron and her young (second) husband, Dermot, who is rather like an overgrown child, unable to make a success of anything and loving nothing more than a drink in the pub. Kate is not unaware of Dermot’s faults, but her love is charged with sexual passion – though the title suggests that this may not be enough in the long run. Kate’s grown-up children also experience love in the novel, in both cases without much reply. Louisa develops crush on the young curate, Father Blizzard, and Tom falls for the daughter of one of Kate’s friends with the equally unlikely name Araminta. It would be easy to make any of these lovestruck characters laughable, but Taylor is more generous than this, and even seems to have sympathy for Dermot’s general fecklessness. making In a Summer Season one of her sunniest books.
Hester Lilly
Finally, rather than a fifth novel, a novella, Hester Lilly, from the collection of the same name published in 1954. The premise is straightforward: orphaned teenager Hester goes to stay with her cousin, Robert (a Headmaster) and his wife Muriel. Muriel seems to have misgivings about this even before she arrives, but is relived to see her dressed in a way that emphasises her youth and poverty rather than her beauty. Slowly, however, her jealousy grows, and it is, in fact, she who suggests to Hester that she must be in love with Richard which leads the girl to assume that is what she is feeling. Muriel realises, however, that any attempt to remove Hester from the household will make her look bad. While Taylor allows the reader insight into Muriel and Hester’s thoughts, she deliberately leaves Richard’s feelings opaque, placing us in the same position as the two women. Without the need for the larger cast of a novel, this showcases Taylor’s skills on a smaller stage.
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