Anita Brookner Bibliography

Compiled by Kitamura (Ito) Yukiko

The aim of the bibliographies on this website is to give a chronological record of Anita Brookner's published essays and criticism on art and literature: books by Brookner, contributions to books by Brookner, and contributions to periodicals by Brookner (1955-, 1960-, 1970-, 1980-, 1990-, 2000-).

See also Anita Brookner in Japan (Translations of Brookner's Novels, Books and Articles on Brookner).

Being best known as a novelist, Anita Brookner (1928-2016) wrote one novella and twenty-four novels (see the list)*, including Hotel du Lac (1984), which won the Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction in 1984. We should not forget, however, that she was one of the most significant British critics of art and literature. More than four hundred articles by Brookner have been published, nevertheless only nineteen of them are collected in Soundings (1997). This fact gave me the idea to show the bibliographies of Brookner's essays and criticism on the website, though they are still under development. Brookner provides articles for such periodicals as the Burlington Magazine, The London Review of Books, the Observer, the Spectator, the Sunday Times, and the Times Literary Supplement. This is the first attempt to compile the bibliography of Anita Brookner's essays and criticism, including her early writings as an art historian.

Brookner's writing career started as an art historian, specializing in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century French painting. She received her Ph.D. from the University of London (Courtauld Institute of Art) in 1952 with the thesis "The Origins and Significance of the Works of Jean-Baptiste Greuze." Anita Brookner was the first woman to be appointed Slade Professor at Cambridge University, was a Reader at the Courtauld Institute of Art and a fellow of New Hall, Cambridge.

It should be emphasized that Brookner's dual interests in art and literature was constant. One of her acclaimed works of criticism, The Genius of the Future: Studies in French Art Criticism (1971), argues the interrelation of French writers (such as Diderot, Stendhal, Baudelaire, Zola, the Brothers Goncourt) and art. On the other hand, her novels are influenced by art in various ways. Most studies, however, have not focused on the influence art had on the Brookner's novels. Actually in Fraud (1992), for example, the psychology and ideas of characters are described through the paintings of Turner, Ingres, Degas, and Seurat (see Ito 2001a)**. Besides, in A Private View (1994), the protagonist goes to see the Sickert exhibition, which really existed in 1992, and the work itself is in some sense a hybridization of fiction and art criticism (see Ito 2001b)***. In order to understand Brookner's fictional world, it is necessary to examine the relationship between fiction and criticism, as well as the relationship between art and literature.

References

* The List of Anita Brookner's Novels

A Start in Life, London: Jonathan Cape, 1981; The Debut, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.
Providence, London: Jonathan Cape, 1982.
Look at Me, London: Jonathan Cape, 1983.
Hotel du Lac, London: Jonathan Cape, 1984.
Family and Friends, London: Jonathan Cape, 1985.
A Misalliance, London: Jonathan Cape, 1986.
A Friend from England, London: Jonathan Cape, 1987.
Latecomers, London: Jonathan Cape, 1988.
Lewis Percy, London: Jonathan Cape, 1989.
Brief Lives, London: Jonathan Cape, 1990.
A Closed Eye, London: Jonathan Cape, 1991.
Fraud, London: Jonathan Cape, 1992.
A Family Romance, London: Jonathan Cape, 1993; Dolly, New York: Random House, 1994.
A Private View, London: Jonathan Cape, 1994.
Incidents in the Rue Laugier, London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.
Altered States, London: Jonathan Cape, 1996.
Visitors, London: Jonathan Cape, 1997.
Falling Slowly, London: Viking, 1998.
Undue Influence, London: Viking, 1999.
The Bay of Angels, London: Viking, 2001.
The Next Big Thing, London: Viking, 2002; Making Things Better, New York: Random House, 2002.
The Rules of Engagement, London: Viking, 2003.
Leaving Home, London: Viking, 2005.
Strangers, London: Penguin, 2009.
"At The Hairdresser's," London: Penguin, 2011. Novella, available only as an e-book.

(As for the criticism on Bookner's novels, see George Soule, Four British Women Novelists: Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch, Barbara Pym: An Annotated and Critical Secondary Bibliography, Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998.)

** Ito, Yukiko. (2001a), Anita Brookner no Uso ni okeru kaiga [The Paintings in Anita Brookner's Fraud]. Horizon 33 (Waseda University Eibei Bungaku Kenkyukai, 2001), pp. 1-14.

*** ---. (2001b), Anita Brookner Tenrankai Nairan to Walter Richard Sickert no kaiga [Anita Brookner's A Private View and the Paintings of Walter Richard Sickert]. English Literature 82 (Waseda University English Literature Society, 2001), pp. 16-30.

I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr Dany Savelli, who made valuable suggestions and gave encouragement for this project. I would also like to thank Dr Anthony Martin for his insightful suggestions and inspiring presence.