Brenda Maddox

Brenda, Lady Maddox FRSL (née Murphy; February 24, 1932 – June 16, 2019)[1] was an American writer and biographer, who spent most of her adult life living and working in the UK, from 1959 until her death.[2] She is best known for her biographies, including of Nora Barnacle, the wife of James Joyce, and for her semi-autobiographical book, The Half-Parent: Living with Other People's Children.

Brenda Maddox

FRSL
BornBrenda Murphy
(1932-02-24)February 24, 1932
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJune 16, 2019(2019-06-16) (aged 87)
OccupationBiographer
Journalist
Alma materHarvard University
London School of Economics
Notable worksRosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA
Notable awardsSuffrage Science award (2011)
Spouse
​
(m. 1960)​
[1]
ChildrenBronwen Maddox
Bruno Maddox

Education and early life

Born Brenda Murphy in Bridgewater, Massachusetts in 1932, she graduated from Harvard University (class of 1953) with a degree in English literature.[3][4] She also studied at the London School of Economics.

Career

She was a book reviewer for The Observer, The Times, New Statesman, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and regularly contributed to BBC Radio 4 as a critic and commentator. Her biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, D.H. Lawrence, Nora Joyce, W. B. Yeats and Rosalind Franklin[5] have been widely acclaimed. She received the Los Angeles Times Biography Award, the Silver PEN Award, the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, and the Whitbread Biography Prize.[2]

Maddox lived in London and spent time at her cottage near Brecon, Wales where she and her husband, Sir John Maddox (d. 2009), were actively involved within the local community. She was vice-president of the Hay-on-Wye Festival of Literature, a member of the Editorial Board of British Journalism Review, and a past chairman of the Broadcasting Press Guild. Maddox had two children and two stepchildren.[2]

Her best-known biography, that of James Joyce's wife Nora Barnacle, was made into a 2000 movie, Nora, starring Susan Lynch in the title role and Ewan McGregor as Joyce.[3]

Her biography of the scientist James Watson was published in 2017.[6]

Awards and honours

Maddox was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1999.[7] She won the Suffrage Science award in 2011.[8]

Bibliography
  • Beyond Babel: New Directions in Communications[9]
  • The Half-Parent: Living with Other People's Children[10]
  • Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor? A Myth of Our Time[11]
  • Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce[12]
  • D.H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage,[13] UK edition The Married Man: A Life of D. H. Lawrence, London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994.
  • Yeats's Ghosts: The Secret Life of W.B. Yeats[14]
  • Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA[15]
  • "Mother of DNA"[16]
  • James Watson, London: Bloomsbury, 2017; New York: Harper, 2018.
  • "The woman who cracked the BBC's glass ceiling"[17]
  • Maggie: The First Lady[18]
  • "The whole world in his hand" The Times, May 27, 2006.
  • George Eliot: Novelist, Lover, Wife[19]
  • Reading the Rocks: How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life[20]
  • Freud's Wizard: The Enigma of Ernest Jones[21]

Personal life

Brenda met John Maddox, then a science correspondent for The Guardian, while visiting Europe in 1958. They married in 1960, and settled in London, where she raised two stepchildren and had three more children of her own.[2] She died on June 16, 2019, aged 87.[1][22][2]

References
  1. Anon (2017). "Maddox, Brenda Power, (Lady Maddox)". Who's Who & Who Was Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U45430. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. Rocco, Fiammetta (June 28, 2019). "Brenda Maddox obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  3. Genzlinger, Neil (June 27, 2019). "Brenda Maddox, Biographer Who Revealed Joyce's Muse, Dies at 87". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
  4. Article in The Washington Post
  5. NPR: Rosalind Franklin: Dark Lady of DNA – an audio interview
  6. Maddox, Brenda, James Watson, London: Bloomsbury, 2017; New York: Harper, 2018.
  7. "Royal Society of Literature All Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on March 5, 2010. Retrieved August 10, 2010.
  8. "Suffrage Science Life Sciences 2011 by MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences". Issuu.com. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
  9. Beyond Babel: New Directions in Communications London: The Trinity Press, 1972; ISBN 0-233-96004-X
  10. The Half-Parent: Living with Other People's Children London: Andre Deutsch, 1975; OCLC 723673316
  11. Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor? A Myth of Our Time New York: M. Evans & Co., 1977; ISBN 0-87131-243-3
  12. Nora: A Biography of Nora Joyce also published as Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom. London: Hamilton, 1988; ISBN 9780395365106, OCLC 901987872
  13. D.H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994; ISBN 9781856192439, OCLC 185671236
  14. Yeats's Ghosts: The Secret Life of W.B. Yeats, New York: HarperCollins, 1999; ISBN 0-06-017494-3
  15. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, New York: HarperCollins, 2002; ISBN 9780006552116, OCLC 881159847
  16. "Mother of DNA" New Humanist, 117 (2002): 3.
  17. "The woman who cracked the BBC's glass ceiling", British Journalism Review. 13: 2 (2003): 69–72.
  18. Maggie: The First Lady, London: Coronet, 2004; ISBN 9780340825464, OCLC 1065214664
  19. George Eliot: Novelist, Lover, Wife London: HarperPress, 2009; also published as George Eliot in Love, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
  20. Reading the Rocks: How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life Archived June 20, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Bloomsbury, 2017; ISBN 9781408879580
  21. Freud's Wizard: The Enigma of Ernest Jones, also published as Freud's Wizard: Ernest Jones and the Transformation of Psychoanalysis, John Murray, 2006
    Da Capo Press, 2007.
  22. "Brenda Maddox". The Daily Telegraph. June 22, 2019. Retrieved June 22, 2019.
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