ABSE, Joan 1926-

PERSONAL: Second syllable of surname is pronounced "see"; born September 11, 1926, in Lancashire, England; daughter of John (an engineer) and Mary (a nurse; maiden name, Tytler) Mercer; married Dannie Abse (a doctor and writer), August 4, 1951; children: Keren, Susanna, Jesse David. Education: London School of Economics and Political Science, London, B.Sc., 1946; Courtauld Institute of Art, London, M.A., 1972. Politics: Socialist. Religion: None.

ADDRESSES: Home— 85 Hodford Rd., London NW11 8NH, England. Agent— Anthony Sheil Associates, 2/3 Morwell St., London WC1B 3AR, England.

CAREER: Financial Times, London, England, librarian, 1946-53; writer.

WRITINGS:

The Art Galleries of Britain and Ireland: A Guide to Their Collections, Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1975, Farleigh Dickinson University Press (Rutherford, NJ), 1976.

(Editor) My London School of Economics (essays), Robson Books (London, England), 1977.

John Ruskin: The Passionate Moralist (biography), Quartet Books (London, England), 1980, Knopf (New York, NY), 1981.

(Compiler, with Dannie Abse) Voices in the Gallery, Tate Gallery (London, England), 1986.

(Compiler, with Dannie Abse) The Music Lover's Literary Companion, Robson Books (London, England), 1988, Parkwest (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor) Letters from Wales, Seren (Bridgend, Wales), 2000.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A study, tentatively titled The Art of Work, on the subject of work—particularly manual work—as it has been treated in art throughout the ages.

SIDELIGHTS: Joan Abse has distinguished herself as a biographer and an art historian. In his New York Times review of John Ruskin: The Passionate Moralist, Anatole Broyard called Abse "a most satisfying biographer in this very good book on Ruskin." The biography is "carefully prepared and pleasantly written," Richard Ellmann agreed in the New York Times Book Review. He remarked, "What especially animates Joan Abse's book is her keen interest in Ruskin's effort to blend his artistic and social sympathies." And Jean Strouse commented in Newsweek that "in tracing the development of his ideas about art, morality and society, Abse shows the remarkable reach and integrity of his [Ruskin's] mind."

In Letters from Wales, Abse presents a portrait of that country by assembling more than three hundred journal entries and letters written by natives and visitors, from the thirteenth century up until the twentieth. Reviewing the book for the London Observer, Jan Morris noted that the earliest responses to Wales have much in common with more recent perceptions, and that English visitors in the thirteenth century seem to "say precisely the same things, in precisely the tones of voice, that English visitors to Wales are still saying now." English visitors routinely wax poetic over the beauty of the Welsh countryside but find the people and language aggravating. Welsh natives, on the other hand, express their dissatisfaction with conditions created by British rule. This is what gives this "fascinating collection its sense of déjà vu [and] its underlying tension—English dislike on the one side, and Welsh resentment on the other," stated Morris, who went on to say that the author, who is British, is "not in the least stuffy or biased."

Abse worked with her husband, Dannie, a respected poet, to compile The Music Lover's Literary Companion. In it, they bring together passages written by musicians on their art, and by writers who wish to capture the beauty of music in words. The excerpts from musicians are frequently "witty," reported a reviewer for Economist, who added that "the rich variety of forms and attitudes in the anthology, and the general quality of the selections, will encourage much pleasurable browsing."

Abse once told CA: "I have always been deeply interested in social, political, and economic questions, and equally so in art and literature. Ruskin's thought, in a sense, synthesized these interests. Now, in the book I am presently writing, through the medium of art and literature—the witness that they provide—I am endeavoring to discover the statuses of work and workers at varying periods in human history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

America, April 10, 1982, Howard W. Fulweiler, review of John Ruskin: The Passionate Moralist, p. 287.

Economist, December 24, 1988, review of The Music Lover's Literary Companion, p. 118.

Library Journal, November 15, 1981, Robin Kaplan, review of John Ruskin, p. 2231.

New Republic, December 9, 1981, Peter Stansky, review of John Ruskin, p. 28; December 23, 1981, John Canaday, review of John Ruskin, p. 27.

Newsweek, November 23, 1981.

New York Times, November 14, 1981, Anatole Broyard, review of John Ruskin, p. 15.

New York Times Book Review, Richard Ellmann, November 22, 1981, review of John Ruskin, p. 9.

Observer, July 16, 2000, Jan Morris, review of Letters from Wales, p. 336.

Publishers Weekly, October 2, 1981, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of John Ruskin, p. 105.

Smithsonian, January, 1982, Andrea O. Dean, review of John Ruskin, p. 132.

Time, January 11, 1982, John Skow, review of John Ruskin, p. 78.*