Biography
Brigid Antonia Brophy was born in Britain on 12 June 1929, in Ealing in London. She was the only child of the novelist, John Brophy, and Charis Brophy (nee Grundy), who was a teacher. Even as a child she began writing plays. During World War II she attended The Abbey School, Reading, between May 1941 and July 1943, and other schools. She then attended St Paul's Girls' School in London. In 1947 she went on a scholarship to Oxford University (St Hugh's College), but left in 1948 without a degree.
In 1953, when she was twenty-five, her book of short stories, The Crown Princess, was published; which was followed in the same year by her much better received novel, Hackenfeller's Ape (in which a laboratory ape falls in love with a human being).
In 1954 she married art historian, Michael Levey (afterwards director of the British National Gallery, 1973–87, and knighted in 1981). The couple had one daughter. In the following years she brought out a series of novels, including Flesh (1962), The Finishing Touch (1963; described as a 'lesbian fantasia'), The Snow Ball (1964) and Palace Without Chairs (1978; in which a child of royal descent survives political tumult).
Brophy also wrote several non-fiction books and essays, including Black Ship to Hell (1962; an appreciation of Shavian and Freudian ideas), Mozart the Dramatist (1964) and (with her husband and Charles Osborne) Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without (1967). Her detailed study of Ronald Firbank, Prancing Novelist A Defence Of Fiction In The Form Of A Critical Biography In Praise Of Ronald Firbank, appeared in 1973.
She was a campaigner for several reforms. With Maureen Duffy she fought between 1972 and 1982 for authors' Public Lending Right. She was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto. She became president of the National Anti-Vivisection Society. In her book, Baroque 'n' Role (1987) she wrote about her struggle with multiple sclerosis (of which she knew the first symptoms in 1981), her bisexuality and the causes which she supported.
From 1987 her husband looked after her during her illness. She died on 7 August 1995, at Louth in Lincolnshire.
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