Lady Violet Powell
Lady Violet Powell (13 March 1912 – 12 January 2002), born Violet Georgiana Pakenham, third daughter of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford and Lady Mary Julia Child Villiers (daughter of Victor Child-Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey), was a writer and critic. She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey.
She married Anthony Powell (21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) on 1 December 1934 at All Saints Anglican Church, Ennismore Gardens, Knightsbridge; they had two children, Tristram and John.[1]
A member of a highly literary family, Lady Violet's brothers were Edward and Frank, while her sisters included Pansy and Mary Pakenham. She was herself a distinguished memoirist and biographer. Her The Life of a Provincial Lady (1988), on the life of E. M. Delafield, has been called by one critic "one of the best literary biographies of a British writer in the twentieth century". Those who knew the couple well believed that Lady Violet made significant contributions to the richness, depth and polish of her husband's work.[2] She also wrote a biography of the English novelist Flora Annie Steel.[3]
She is generally taken to be the model for the character of Isobel Tolland in her husband's novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time[4].
Books
Some of her books are:
- The Album of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time
- A Compton-Burnett Compendium
- A Jane Austen Compendium: The Six Major Novels
- The Constant Novelist: A Study of Margaret Kennedy, 1896–1967
- Flora Annie Steel: Novelist of India
- The Irish Cousins: The Books and Background of Somerville and Ross
- The Life of a Provincial Lady: A Study of E.M. Delafield and Her Works
- Margaret, Countess of Jersey: A Biography
- A Substantial Ghost: The Literary Adventures of Maude ffoulkes
Autobiography
- Five Out of Six: An Autobiography (a reference to her birth order amongst her siblings)
- Within the Family Circle: An Autobiography
- The Departure Platform: An Autobiography
References
- ^ Obituary in The Daily Telegraph, 15 January 2002
- ^ Nicholas Birns, Understanding Anthony Powell (2004), p. 7
- ^ Mannsaker, Frances M. (Autumn 1982). "Flora Annie Steel, Novelist of India by Violet Powell". Victorian Studies. 26 (1): 105–106. doi:10.2307/3827506.
- ^ "Lady Violet Powell". 15 January 2002. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
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