Education
Born in Brockton, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, she graduated from Harvard University (class of 1953) with a degree in English literature and also studied at the London School of Economics.
Born in Brockton, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, she graduated from Harvard University (class of 1953) with a degree in English literature and also studied at the London School of Economics.
She is a book reviewer for The Observer, The Times, New Statesman, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and regularly contributes to British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4 as a critic and commentator. Her biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, Doctorate. H. Lawrence, Nora Joyce, West. B. Yeats and Rosalind Franklin have been widely acclaimed. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.
Her latest biographical project is a scientific biography of James Doctorate. Watson.
She is vice-president of the Hay-on-Wye Festival of Literature, member of the Editorial Board of British Journalism Review, and a past chairman of the Broadcasting Press Guild.