With the appearance of her first novel in 1981 Anita Brookner immediately secured a reputation as one of the finest stylists among contemporary writers of fiction in Britain. After a late start as a novelist Brookner has proved a prolific source of the morally engaged novel of consciousness and of exquisite sensibility. Since her fourth novel, Hotel du Lac (1984), won the prestigious Booker McConnell Prize for fiction, her work has consistently attracted attention from British and American readers. Equally admired and criticized for her attention to the themes of stoicism, loneliness, and melancholy which beset her contemporary, genteel characters, Brookner's voice is instantly recognizable as the most recent distinguished contributor to a tradition of British women's writing that runs from Jane Austen through Elizabeth Bowen, Rosamond Lehmann, Elizabeth Taylor, and Barbara Pym.

Brookner was the only child of middle-class, socialist, nonreligious Jewish parents. She was born and grew up...