Olivia Manning: A Woman at War is the first literary biography of the twentieth-century novelist Olivia Manning. It tells the story of a writer whose life and work were shaped by her own fierce ambition, and, like many of her generation, the events and aftermath of the Second World War. From the time she left Portsmouth for London in the mid-1930s determined to become a famous writer, through her wartime years in the Balkans and the Middle East, and until her death in London in 1980, Olivia Manning was a dedicated and hard-working author. Married to a British Council lecturer stationed in Bucharest, Olivia Manning arrived in Romania on the 3rd September 1939, the fateful day when Allied forces declared war on Germany. For the duration of World War Two, she kept one step ahead of invading German forces as she and her husband fled Romania for Greece, and then Greece for the Middle East, where they stayed until the end of the war. These tumultuous wartime years are the subject of her best-known and most transparently autobiographical novels, The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy. Olivia Manning refused to be labelled a 'feminist,' but her novels depict with cutting insight and sardonic wit the marginal position of women striving for independent identity in arenas frequently controlled by men, whether on the frontlines of war or in the publishing world of the 1950s. However, she did not just write about World War Two and women's lives. Amongst other things, Manning published fiction about making do in Britain's post-war Age of Austerity, about desecration of the environment through uncontrolled development, and about the painful adjustment to post-war British life for young men. As the author of thirteen published novels, two volumes of short stories, several works of non-fiction, and a regular reviewer of contemporary fiction, she was a visible presence on the British literary scene throughout her life and her work provides a detailed insight into the period. Grounded in thorough research and enriched by discussion of previously unexamined manuscripts and letters, Olivia Manning: A Woman at War is a timely study of Olivia Manning's remarkable life. Deirdre David integrates incisive critical analysis of Manning's writing with extensive discussion of the historical contexts of her fiction.

About the Author
Deirdre David is Professor Emerita of English at Temple University. Throughout her long career she has taught courses in Victorian literature, the history of the British novel, and women's writing. She has published books dealing with social problems in the Victorian novel (Fictions of Resolution in Three Victorian Novels, 1981), the conflicted position of the woman intellectual in Victorian culture (Intellectual Women and Victorian Patriarchy 1987), and the importance of British women in imperialism (Rule Britannia: Women, Empire, and Victorian Writing 1995). She also edited The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel (2001), and co-edited (with Eileen Gillooly) Contemporary Dickens (2009). She published her first biography in 2007 (Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life) and continues to teach as a member of the Society of Senior Scholars at Columbia University.

Reviews
David's story of Manning's life is well told from start to finish, rich with contextual details and memorable incidents. * Rohan Maitzen, Open Letters Monthly *
David is a generous and sympathetic biographer * Artemis Cooper, The Guardian *
Deirdre David has written a sympathetic, cogent and illuminating account of a writer's progress * Patricia Craig, The Independent *
[a] clear-eyed, unsentimental and riveting biography. * Lesley McDowell, Sunday Herald *
Deirdre David makes a strong and deeply admiring case for Manning as an artist who broke the mould of the women's novel by writing about war from a new perspective ... [a] timely reassessment of Manning's status. * Claire Harman, Evening Standard *
confident, well researched and engaging. * Sandeep Parmar, Times Higher Education *
thorough and sympathetic * Lindsay Duguid, Times Literary Supplement *
David is an accomplished practitioner of the particular type of biographical recording she develops for her appreciation of Manning's life and works. Like her subject, she is good at the difficult arts of historical and narrative reconstruction. This book, drawing together Manning's many struggles, is a compelling account of a remarkable woman and her 20th-century stories. * Rachel Bowlby, New Statesman *
a study that is subtle, deeply researched and utterly absorbing. * Roy Foster, Irish Times *
Deirdre David's study of this frequently tormented novelist is a book that needed to be written. * Paul Bailey, Literary Review *
[A] thorough literary biography - complete with concise critical appraisals of Manning's 13 novels and two volumes of short stories ... [David] is also clear-eyed about how Manning's combative attitude shaped, and was shaped by, her reputation for trouble among her literary contemporaries. * Caroline Moorehead, Wall Street Journal *
[A] superb new biography. * George Core, Sewanee Review *
Olivia Manning: A Woman at War is an impeccably researched and measured book, giving its subject her due, but doing so with a sense of proportion and perspective that makes it the very model of what a biography should be. * Carl Rollyson, The New Criterion *
Deirdre David, who has written a rewarding book about Manning's life, treats her as a giant. Having read the two trilogies, and then Deirdre David's book as a follow-up, I feel bound to say that Ms. David is right -- feel bound, that is, because Manning is still not getting the attention she deserves. * Clive James, author of Latest Readings *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198728580
Author Deirdre David
Format Paperback
Page Count 424
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 141mm * 24mm