Betty Miller (author)
Betty Miller | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Betty Spiro 1910 Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 24 November 1965 London, U.K. |
| Other names | B. Bergson Spiro (pen name) |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, journalist, novelist |
| Spouse | Emanuel Miller |
| Children | 2, including Jonathan Miller |
Betty Bergson Spiro Miller (1910 – 24 November 1965) was an Irish author of literary fiction and non-fiction.
Early life and education
[edit]Betty Spiro was born in Cork, Ireland, the daughter of Sara Bergson and Simon Spiro, who were Lithuanian Jews.[1][2] She earned a degree in journalism at University College, London in 1930.[3]
Career
[edit]She wrote her first novel, The Mere Living (1933), while she was a university student; it was first published under the pen name "B. Bergson Spiro." Several more novels followed.[4][5] After the World War II, she wrote extensively for literary journals including Horizon, The Cornhill Magazine and The Twentieth Century. She also edited a collection of letters from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to fellow writer Mary Russell Mitford, published in 1954.[6]
Miller's literary reputation was established by the publication of her biography of Robert Browning (1952), which earned her election to the Royal Society of Literature.[7] In The New York Times, novelist Francis Steegmuller called Miller's biography of Browning "fascinating and impressive" and said that it "supercedes previous lives of the poet."[8] In The Daily Telegraph, Guy Ramsey wrote that "It is difficult to know which to admire the most—the industry of research, the delicacy of insight, or the moderation of statement."[9]
Personal life and legacy
[edit]In 1933, Spiro married Emanuel Miller, the founding father of British child psychiatry.[10] The couple had two children: Sarah (died 2006), and Sir Jonathan Miller (1934–2019), the theatre and opera director.[11] Betty Miller died in 1965, at the age of 55, in London.[12]
Of Miller's seven novels, two have continued in print: Farewell, Leicester Square (1941), published by Persephone Books in 2000, and On the Side of the Angels (1945), published by Capuchin Classics in 2012.[13]
Books by Miller
[edit]- The Mere Living (1933)
- Sunday (1934)
- Portrait of the Bride (1935)[14]
- Farewell Leicester Square (1941)[2][15]
- A Room in Regent's Park (1942)[4]
- On the Side of the Angels (1945)[13]
- The Death of a Nightingale (1948)[2]
- Robert Browning: A Portrait (1952)[8]
- Elizabeth Barrett to Miss Mitford (1954, editor)[6]
References
[edit]- ^ Bassett, Kate (October 2014). In Two Minds: A Biography of Jonathan Miller: A Biography of Jonathan Miller. Oberon Books. ISBN 9781849437387.
- ^ a b c Sceats, Sarah. "Betty Miller and the Marrano Self" in Nadia Valman, ed., Jewish Women Writers in Britain (Wayne State University Press 2014): 81-96. ISBN 9780814339145
- ^ Lassner, Phyllis; Trubowitz, Lara (2008). Antisemitism and Philosemitism in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries: Representing Jews, Jewishness, and Modern Culture. Associated University Presse. pp. 188–192. ISBN 978-0-87413-029-4.
- ^ a b Swinnerton, Frank (1 November 1942). "New Novels". The Observer. p. 3. Retrieved 17 April 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "With Malice Towards Some". Liverpool Daily Post. 14 March 1945. p. 2. Retrieved 17 April 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b "Letters to Miss Mitford". The Daily Telegraph. 30 July 1954. p. 8. Retrieved 17 April 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Encyclopedia of British Women's Writing, 1900–1950, 1st edition, Pan Macmillan, 2009. ISBN 978-0-230-22177-2
- ^ a b Steegmuller, Francis (8 March 1953). "A Love of Dependence (review of Robert Browning: A Portrait, by Betty Miller)". The New York Times. p. 121. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
- ^ Ramsey, Guy (21 November 1952). "A New Valuation of Browning and his Wife". The Daily Telegraph. p. 20. Retrieved 17 April 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Thom, Deborah. "Miller, Emanuel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/61403. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Glover, Edward; Wolstenholme, Sir Gordon. "Emanuel Miller". RCP Museum. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
- ^ "Death notice for Betty Miller". The Daily Telegraph. 26 November 1965. p. 18. Retrieved 17 April 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Miller, Betty (2012). On the Side of the Angels. Capuchin Classics. ISBN 978-1-907429-30-9.
- ^ "Review of Portrait of the Bride by Betty Miller". The New York Times Book Review. 21 June 1936. p. 55. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
- ^ Nash, Kate (11 December 2017). "Fixing the Interwar Meal: Positive Eugenics and Jewish Assimilation in Betty Miller's Farewell Leicester Square". Modernism/modernity. 2 (4). doi:10.26597/mod.0031.
External links
[edit]- A 1935 portrait of Miller, by Bassano Ltd, in the National Portrait Gallery
- Lydia Fellgett, "The Writing of Betty Miller, 1933-49" (PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, 2014).
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
- 1910 births
- 1965 deaths
- Jewish novelists
- Jewish women writers
- 20th-century Irish biographers
- Irish women biographers
- Irish women novelists
- 20th-century Irish women writers
- 20th-century Irish novelists
- Writers from Cork (city)
- Alumni of University College London
- People educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School
- 20th-century Irish Jews