Margaret Forster, the novelist and biographer has died
9th February 2016: Margaret Forster, author of more than twenty-five novels and a number of biographical and autobiographical works, has died at the age of seventy-seven. She is best known for her second novel Georgy Girl, her biographies of Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and for her books of memoir; Hidden Lives, Precious Lives and, most recently, My Life in Houses. Her new novel, How to Measure a Cow, is due to be published on 3rd March 2016.
© Rex Features
Margaret will always be remembered for her award-winning biography - Daphne du Maurier. She often told the story of how, when looking for a book one morning, a copy of Rebecca fell from the shelf. Believing that Daphne du Maurier’s novels were undervalued this incident prompted her to write to Carmen Callil, her publisher at Chatto and Windus, suggesting a biography.
Carmen agreed but the very next day they received news that Daphne had died. Shortly afterwards, amongst much competition for who should write the biography, Daphne’s three children asked Margaret to do it. She carried out an exhaustive process of working through papers and letters and interviewing and, with the support of the du Maurier Browning family, produced her excellent, thorough and comprehensive biography, which was published in 1993. Despite the passing of more than twenty years Margaret’s book it still regarded as the principle work on Daphne du Maurier.