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Jane Gardam

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Jane Gardam

OBE FRSL
BornJean Mary Pearson
(1928-07-11)11 July 1928
Coatham, England
Died28 April 2025(2025-04-28) (aged 96)
Chipping Norton, England
Occupation
  • Writer
  • critic
Alma materBedford College, London
Period1971–2014
Genre
Notable worksGod on the Rocks
The Queen of the Tambourine
Old Filth
Notable awardsPhoenix Award
Booker Prize
BBC National Short Story Award
Spouse
David Gardam
​
​
(m. 1954; died 2010)​
Children3, including Tim[a]

Jane Mary Gardam OBE FRSL (born Jean Mary Pearson; 11 July 1928 – 28 April 2025) was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.[1][2]

Biography

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Gardam was born Jean Mary Pearson in Coatham, North Yorkshire, on 11 July 1928 to William and Kathleen Mary Pearson,[3] and grew up in Cumberland and the North Riding of Yorkshire. Whilst at school, she was inspired by a mobile all-woman theatre run by Nancy Hewins, who created "She Stoops to Conquer".[4] At the age of seventeen, she won a scholarship to read English at Bedford College, London, now part of Royal Holloway, University of London (BA English, 1949).[5] After leaving university, Gardam worked in a number of literary-related jobs, starting off as a Red Cross Travelling Librarian for hospital libraries, and later a journalist.[6] She married David Gardam QC in 1954[7] and they had three children, Tim, Catharine (Kitty) Nicholson, a botanical artist who died in 2011,[8] and Tom. Her husband David died in 2010.[7]

Gardam's first book was a children's novel, A Long Way From Verona, a 13-year-old girl's first-person narrative, it was published in 1971.[9] It won the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association in 1991, which recognizes the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award.[10][better source needed] In 1989, Gardam was on the judging panel of the (then) Whitbread Book Award, now known as the Costa Book Awards.[11]

In her last works of fiction she explored related themes and recounted stories from different points of view in three novels: Old Filth (2004), The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009), and Last Friends (2013). One American reviewer noted that her concern with "the intricate web of manners and class peculiar to the inhabitants of her homeland" does not explain why she remains less well known to an international audience than her English contemporaries.[12] He recommended Old Filth for its "typical excellence and compulsive readability", written by a novelist "at the top of her form".[12] The Spectator praised The Man in the Wooden Hat for its "rich complexities of chronology, settings and characters, all manipulated with marvellous dexterity".[13] In 2015, a BBC survey voted Old Filth among the 100 greatest British novels.[14]

Gardam died at a care facility in Chipping Norton, on 28 April 2025, at the age of 96.[3][15]

Works and recognition

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Children's books

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  • A Long Way from Verona (1971)
  • A Few Fair Days (1971)
  • The Summer After the Funeral (1973)
  • Bridget and William (1981)
  • The Hollow Land (1981), received the 1983 Whitbread Children's Book Award
  • Horse (1982)
  • Kit (1983)
  • Kit in Boots (1986)
  • Swan (1987)
  • Through the Doll's House Door (1987)
  • Black Woolly Pony (1993)
  • Tufty Bear (1996)
  • The Kit Stories (1998)

Short story collections

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Novels

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Non-fiction

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  • The Iron Coast (1994)

References

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  1. ^ "No. 58929". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2008. p. 10.
  2. ^ Delight at Honour for Former Charity Director, Kent Online, 31 December 2008, retrieved 27 November 2024
  3. ^ a b Verongos, Helen T. (29 April 2025). "Jane Gardam, Witty Novelist of a Waning British Empire, Dies at 96". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
  4. ^ Barker, Paul (26 June 2004). "Paul Barker on the genius of The Osiris Players". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  5. ^ "Royal Holloway, London website", Notable alumni, Royal Holloway, University of London, archived from the original on 12 May 2013, retrieved 31 May 2013
  6. ^ Miller, Lucasta (29 July 2005). "Novel existence". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  7. ^ a b Smith, Sarah A. (29 April 2025). "Jane Gardam obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 29 April 2025.
  8. ^ "Catharine Nicholson". The Daily Telegraph. 8 July 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  9. ^ Bader, Barbara (7 May 1972). "A Long Way From Verona". The New York Times.
  10. ^ "Phoenix Award Brochure 2012".[permanent dead link] Children's Literature Association. Retrieved 2 March 2013.
  11. ^ Streitfeld, David (10 December 1989). "BOOK REPORT". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 1330888409.
  12. ^ a b Gray, Paul (23 July 2006). "Orphan of the Empire". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  13. ^ Caitling, Patrick Skene (9 September 2009). "Rich pickings". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  14. ^ Ciabattari, Jane (7 December 2015). "The 100 greatest British novels". BBC. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  15. ^ Smith, Sarah A. (29 April 2025). "Jane Gardam obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
  16. ^ "Jane Gardam". British Council Literature. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 3 March 2015 – via contemporarywriters.com.
  17. ^ "The 2014 Folio Prize Shortlist is Announced". Folio Prize. 10 February 2014. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  18. ^ Gaby Wood (10 February 2014). "Folio Prize 2013: The Americans are coming, but not the ones we were expecting". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 February 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2014.

Notes

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  1. ^ 1 deceased
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