Ivy Compton-Burnett

Ram Ivy Compton-Burnett is a British novelist born on June 5th, 1884 and died on August 27th, 1969 in London.

Biography

Discrete novelist of first half of the 20th century, Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett (it was anoblie by the queen Elizabeth II little time before its death) was a writer very appreciated by her pars, since Angus Wilson until Nathalie Sarraute or, more close to us, Angelo Rinaldi and Hector Bianciotti.

Born in 1884 (although certain sources in France indicate the erroneous date of 1892) it is the elder one of a phratry of 7 children. Girl of the homeopathic doctor James Compton-Burnett, it lost her mother very early. After the second weddings of his/her father, Ivy and its brothers and sisters accepted an education in residence, which is a first element of explanation to the set of themes of the novels to come, where the family universe and world cup create a heavy and prompt climate with all the criminal and amoraux overflows.

His/her father died whereas it was 16 years old, in 1901. The dark years began then for Ivy which was to suffer from the authority of his/her mother-in-law before losing two of his/her brothers (one died of the continuations of a pneumonia and the other was killed with the war) then two of his/her sisters who committed suicide units. Except these elements one has only little information concerning the biography Ivy Compton-Burnett. It settled with her partner, the journalist Margaret the Jordan, in a London apartment in the middle of the Twenties. The two women were to divide, until the death of Margaret in 1951, nearly thirty years of common life. Ivy Compton-Burnett died in London in 1969.

Its work

The novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett are, according to Angus Wilson, among amoraux which are. One indeed finds there adulteries, meutres (having for origin the pride and the cupidity of the protagonists), homosexuality and the inceste… This dark gallery is described in the form of dialog, which explains why the work of Ivy Compton-Burnett was easily adapted in the form of radiophonic plays which had a great success in the United Kingdom. After a first novel which still suffers from the influence of George Eliot, Dolorès , appeared in 1911, Ivy will observe silence until 1925 and the publication of Maîtres and servants . Until its death a score of titles will follow which highlight all an opposition like Mères and wire in 1937, Jour and darkness in 1951 or Passé and present in 1953. Nathalie Sarraute quotes it like one of the important writers of modernity to equal of Virginia Woolf in the Era of the suspicion .

Ivy Compton-Burnett was admired of Graham Greene, Rosamond Lehmann and Elizabeth Bowen, but rather little appreciated Virginia Woolf.

Selective bibliography

1911 : Dolores
1929 : Brothers and sisters
1934: More women than men
1939: a family and a fortune
1944: Virtuous Elder the
1959: a heritage and its history
1963: a god and his gifts

External bond

Site devoted to Ivy Compton-Burnett and its work

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