Background
Drabble was born June 5, 1939, in Sheffield, Yorkshire. She attended the Mount School in York and Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied literature and took her degree in 1960. Her first novel, A Summer Bird Cage (1963), is about the rivalry of two sisters, one a brilliant Oxford graduate, the other a beautiful woman on the brink of marriage. The Garrick Years (1964) deals with the adulterous intrigues of a misused housewife. In The Millstone (1965), the pregnant daughter of doctrinaire socialists finds herself isolated amidst well-meaning friends. Among her later works, The Needle's Eye (1972) is a study of a complex love affair; The Realms of Gold (1975) centers on an anthropologist's search for a lost lover, fabulous African ruins, and her own family heritage; The Ice Age (1977) offers a broad perspective on modern Britain's social conditions; and The Middle Ground (1980) explores the mid-life crisis of a divorced journalist determined to re-find herself. Drabble's other works include Arnold Bennett (1974), a critical biography, and the novels The Radiant Way (1987) and The Gates of Ivory (1992). She also edited the fifth edition of The Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985).