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Literary excellence was in Penelope Fitzgerald’s genes. Her father was “Evoe” Knox, an editor of Punch, and her uncle was Ronald Knox, the theologian and crime writer. Born in 1916, she did not publish her first book, a biography of Edward Burne-Jones, until 1974. Her first novel, The Golden Child, appeared in 1977. Her second, The Bookshop (1978), drew on her experiences running one in East Anglia and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, — and her next, Offshore, won the prize in 1979. In Fitzgerald’s later life, the books arrived more slowly, but they were, if possible, even more exquisite — in particular her heartfelt 1984 biography of the poet Charlotte Mew, and her last novel, The Blue Flower, which concerned the German philosopher Novalis. She died in 2000, and will be remembered for prose as near to perfection as you will get in this vale of tears.

One to read: The Blue Flower (1995)

More about Penelope Fitzgerald

Read a profile written by Caroline Moorhead for The Times

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