Miranda Seymour: Difference between revisions

'''Miranda Jane Seymour''' (born 8 August 1948) is an [[England|English]] literary critic, novelist, and biographer. Her lives have included those of [[Robert Graves]] and [[Mary Shelley]].

Miranda Seymour was two years old when her parents moved into [[Thrumpton Hall]], the family's ancestral home in Nottinghamshire. This celebrated [[Jacobean architecture|Jacobean]] mansion is on the south bank of the [[River Trent]] at the secluded village of Thrumpton. A Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Literature]] and, in recent years, a visiting Professor of English Studies at the [[Nottingham Trent University]], Seymour is also a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Arts]].<ref>Faber author biography [http://www.faber.co.uk/author/miranda-seymour/ Retrieved 26 April 2012.]</ref> She is an alumna of [[Bedford College, London]], now part of [[Royal Holloway, University of London]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] English, 1981).<ref>

| url = http://www.rhul.ac.uk/alumni/notablealumni/english/mirandaseymour(1948-).aspx

| work = Notable alumni

| publisher = [[Royal Holloway, University of London]]

In 1972 sheSeymour married the novelist and historian [[Andrew Sinclair]] and had a son, Merlin. Her second marriage, to [[Anthony Gottlieb]], then executive editor of ''[[The Economist]]'' and author of a history of Western philosophy, ended in 2003. A transatlantic literary room-swap has led to her third marriage, in 2006, to Ted Lynch, a Bostonian. Seymour divides her time between London and Thrumpton Hall, now dually used byboth theas a family home and for weddings and corporate events.

Biographies by Miranda Seymour include lives of [[Lady Ottoline Morrell]], [[Mary Shelley]], [[Robert Graves]] (about whom she also wrote a novel, ''The Telling'' and a radio play, ''Sea Music'') and a group portrait of [[Henry James]] during his later years (''A Ring of Conspirators''). In 2001, Seymour came across material on [[Hellé Nice]], a glamorous, long-forgotten French Grand Prix racing driver from the 1930s. After extensive research on a well-buried subject, she published a highly acclaimed book (2004) about Hellé Nice's extraordinary and ultimately tragic life. In 2008 she published ''In My Father's House: Elegy for an Obsessive Love'' (Simon and Schuster, UK). The same book is published in the US as ''[[Thrumpton Hall (book)|Thrumpton Hall]]'' (Harper Collins)<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/review/McGrath-t.html|title=House Proud|last=Mcgrath|first=Reviewed By Charles|date=27 July 2008|work=The New York Times|page=1|accessdate=11 August 2011}}</ref> and won the 2008 [[Pen Ackerley Prize]] for Memoir of the Year. Always attracted by unusual and challenging subjects, Seymour wrote about the life of a charismatic 1930s film star, [[Virginia Cherrill]], based upon a substantial archive in private ownership. ''Noble Endeavours: Stories from England; Stories from Germany'' was published in September 2013 by [[Simon & Schuster]]. Her 2018 books, ''In Byron's Wake'', celebrates the lives of Lord Byron's wife and daughter —– Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/18/in-byrons-wake-miranda-seymour-review-byron-wife-daughter-ada-lovelace|title=In Byron’sByron's Wake by Miranda Seymour – the Lord’s ladies|last=Cooke|first=Rachel|date=2018-03-18|website=the Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-06-15}}</ref>

*''Noble Endeavours -– The Life of Two Countries, England and Germany, in Many Stories'' (2013)

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