Sage, Lorna 1943-2001

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SAGE, Lorna 1943-2001

PERSONAL: Born January 13, 1943, in Hanmer, England; died of emphysema January 11, 2001; daughter of Eric (a haulage contractor) and Valma Stockton; married Victor Sage, 1959 (divorced); married Rupert Hodson, 1979; children: (first marriage) Sharon. Education: University of Durham, graduated, 1964; University of Birmingham, M.A., 1966.

CAREER: University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, assistant lecturer, 1965-68, lecturer, 1968-75, senior lecturer, 1975-94, professor of English literature, 1994—, dean of School of English and American Studies, 1985-88, 1993-96. Florence B. Tucker Visiting Professor, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, 1981.

AWARDS, HONORS: Whitbread Award for biography, 2000, for Bad Blood.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Peacock, the Satirical Novels: A Casebook, Macmillan (London, England), 1976.

Doris Lessing, Methuen (New York, NY), 1983.

Women in the House of Fiction: Post-War Women Novelists, Routledge (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor) Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1993.

(Editor) Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter, Virago (London, England), 1994.

(Editor) The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1999.

Bad Blood (memoir), Fourth Estate (London, England), 2001, Morrow (New York, NY), 2002.

Moments of Truth: Twelve Twentieth-Century Women Writers, Fourth Estate (London, England), 2001.

Contributor to periodicals, including Bananas, Granta, London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, and Vogue.

SIDELIGHTS: Lorna Sage was an English writer whose publications include literary studies and a memoir. In one of her earliest published works, Doris Lessing, Sage discusses the artistry of the novelist whose works include The Golden Notebook and The Four-gated City. "Readers will find some excellent individual insights here which deserve more thorough development," wrote World Literature Today reviewer M. Knapp, who summarized Doris Lessing as "a pleasantly guided whirlwind tour through Lessing's oeuvre." Another reviewer, writing in Choice, described Sage's study as "a perceptive, personal essay" and added that it provides a "clear overview of Lessing's oeuvre." Margaret Moan Rowe, in Modern Fiction Studies, praised Doris Lessing as "stunningly comprehensive," and Ellen Cronan Rose wrote in the Women's Review of Books that Sage has "importantly advanced our understanding and appreciation of a writer many of us consider the preeminent spokesperson of post-war, post-modernist, pre-holocaust consciousness."

In 1993 Sage published Women in the House of Fiction: Post-War Women Novelists, which includes what Rose, writing this time in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, deemed "frequently brilliant cameo portraits" of writers such as Lessing, Christina Stead, Margaret Drabble, Margaret Atwood, and Joyce Carol Oates. In the Times Literary Supplement, Jonathan Raban hailed Sage's book as "an enthralling extended lesson on how to be one of those readers on whom nothing … is lost," and in Modern Fiction Studies, Debra Bernardi observed that Women in the House of Fiction serves to "investigate the issues that underlie women's fiction and female subjectivity."

Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter considers the fiction of a writer described by Jane Dunn in the London Observer as a "disconcerting presence." In the book, for which Sage was editor, writers such as Isobel Armstrong, Kate Webb, and Nicole Ward Jouve explore various aspects of Carter's work. James Wood wrote in the London Review of Books that "Flesh and the Mirror is a patchy book," and contended that "most of the essays are so far from the spring of creativity that it does little more than sprinkle them with the occasional generous droplet." On the other hand, Dunn said, "There is a real sense of personal loss in these voices, alongside the larger claim of literature's impoverishment."

Sage's other works as editor include The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, which contains more than 2,000 entries on writers, books, and literary genres. In the Times Literary Supplement, Esther Schor described Sage's publication as a "multicultural project" and reported that it includes entries on writers from India, Africa, and the Caribbean. A Contemporary Review critic said the entries "vary in quality," but Eva-Marie Kröller wrote in Canadian Literature that "The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English … is one of those books that make one wonder how one ever got along without them." Further praise came from Booklist reviewer Mary Ellen Quinn, who called the guide a "rich source."

Bad Blood is a memoir that includes Sage's candid reflections of childhood and adolescence. Sage recalls spending World War II with her combative grandparents, and she relates her unsettling experience as a pregnant teen. A Publishers Weekly critic noted the book's "delicious ironies" and concluded that "readers can't help but be entertained, wickedly." Another critic, Mary Beard, commented in the Times Literary Supplement that Sage's memoir is "remarkable," and Hilary Mantel wrote in Commonweal that Bad Blood is "exquisite." Further praise came from New Statesman reviewer James Hopkins, who likened Sage's book to Maxim Gorky's My Childhood, which he called a "classic memoir."

Sage followed Bad Blood with Moments of Truth: Twelve Twentieth-Century Women Writers, in which she discusses Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Iris Murdoch, and other literary notables. Miranda France wrote in Spectator that the book includes "plenty of biography and some brilliant philosophy," and she hailed it as "a revelation." Kathryn Hughes added in the New Statesman that Sage combines "absolute precision of meaning with a pleasurable elegance."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2000, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, p. 1276.

Canadian Literature, winter, 2000, Eva-Marie Kröller, "Eccentric Games," p. 188.

Choice, November, 1983, review of Doris Lessing, p. 426.

Commonweal, June 15, 2001, Hilary Mantel, review of Bad Blood, p. 25.

Contemporary Review, March, 2000, review of The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, p. 166.

Economist, September 30, 2000, "Literary Memoirs: No Swot," p. 91.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2002, review of Bad Blood, p. 35.

London Review of Books, December 8, 1994, James Wood, "Bewitchment," pp. 20-21.

Modern Fiction Studies, summer, 1984, Margaret Moan Rowe, review of Doris Lessing, pp. 374-378; summer, 1994, Debra Bernardi, review of Women in the House of Fiction: Post-War Women Novelists, pp. 432-434.

New Statesman, July 2, 2001, James Hopkins, review of Bad Blood, p. 56; September 17, 2001, Kathryn Hughes, "Loving Lorna," p. 54.

Observer (London, England), October 2, 1994, Jane Dunn, "That Wolf in Gran's Nightcap," p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, November 23, 1992, review of Granta 41: Biography, p. 59; January 21, 2002, review of Bad Blood, p. 75.

Spectator, September 22, 2001, Miranda France, review of Moments of Truth, p. 47.

Times Literary Supplement, December 4, 1992, Jonathan Raban, review of Women in the House of Fiction: Post-War Women Novelists, p. 13; March 17, 2000, Esther Schor, review of The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, p. 25; September 1, 2000, Mary Beard, "A Vicarage Tea-Party," p. 36; September 21, 2001, Alex Clark, "A Reader's Writer," p. 28.

Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, spring, 1994, Ellen Cronan Rose, review of Women in the House of Fiction: Post-War Women Novelists, pp. 189-191.

Women's Review of Books, January, 1984, Ellen Cronan Rose, "Second-guessing Lessing," pp. 9-10.

World Literature Today, autumn, 1983, M. Knapp, review of Doris Lessing, p. 643; March, 1994, Jane Marcus, "An Embarrassment of Riches," pp. 17-19.