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Shot through with melancholy, Ms. Ellis's novels focus on the small savageries, deep discontents and abiding grief of women's lives. Yet they are also mordantly funny sendups of bourgeois manners. Sometimes, as in the work of
Shirley Jackson, the gothic overlays the domestic, to unsettling effect.
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in London, where she embraced a
Bohemian lifestyle and became known for wearing black. She was working in a coffee shop when she met Colin Haycraft. The couple married in 1956 and eventually had seven children. Their daughter Mary died two days after birth. Their son Joshua spent ten months in a
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was republished in four volumes. All her work was livened by a dry, dark sense of humour. As she put it, "There is no reciprocity. Men love women. Women love children. Children love hamsters. Hamsters don't love anyone".
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She combined a novelist's imagination with an editor's forensic skills, getting immediately to the heart of the problem, with an observation such as, "Lovely characters, darling, but where's the plot?"
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changes in church practices. In one book, she described them as "tide of sewage" and "Protestantized happy-clappy stuff." She was a sharp critic of what she saw as abuses of
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after falling off a roof, dying at age 19 in 1978. Ellis dedicated her poem "The Birds of the Air" to Joshua, with the inscription:
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127:(1977) appeared under the pseudonym Alice Thomas Ellis, which she used in all her later writing. Probably her best-known novel,
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24:(born Ann Margaret Lindholm, 9 September 1932 – 8 March 2005) was an English writer and essayist born in
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In 1995, Ellis's husband died, after which she moved from London to their farmhouse in
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and practice that watered down the faith. She claimed that since the change from the
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List of Ellis' publications, archived from the
University of South Carolina website
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Ellis was born in
Liverpool to John and Alexandra Lindholm. John was half
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Thomas Ellis was educated at Bangor
Grammar School and then entered the
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Many of Ms. Ellis's characters are repellent, and they are meant to be.
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68:, the religious order expelled her as unable to do physical labour.
472:"Alice Thomas Ellis Dies at 72; Writer About Spiritual and Mundane"
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attendance in the previous decade. Infuriated by her comments,
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in 2003 and died of it on 8 March 2005, at the age of 72.
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Converts to Roman
Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism
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As a conservative Roman
Catholic, Ellis disliked the
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Darling, you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble
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133:(1985), was adapted for UK television, as was her
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219:newspaper, Ellis in 1996 criticised
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565:20th-century British women writers
176:. Blackwood and her poet husband,
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555:British people of Finnish descent
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324:The Inn at the Edge of the World
90:He who sang and sprang and moved
560:English people of Welsh descent
510:The Royal Society of Literature
469:Fox, Margalit (12 March 2005).
405:"Obituary | Alice Thomas Ellis"
403:Colvin, Clare (10 March 2005).
141:(1982) was shortlisted for the
575:20th-century British novelists
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164:Ellis's cookery books include
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250:in 1999. She was treated for
246:. She became a Fellow of the
93:Now, in death, is only loved.
84:All his beauty, wit and grace
304:The Skeleton in the Cupboard
168:(Fontana/Collins, 1977) and
99:Gerald Duckworth and Company
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294:The Clothes in the Wardrobe
248:Royal Society of Literature
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282:The Other Side of the Fire
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71:In the 1950s she moved to
435:"Alice Thomas Ellis Dies"
109:, in Ellis's obituary in
87:Lie forever in one place.
16:English writer, 1932–2005
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600:Deaths from lung cancer
585:English Roman Catholics
570:English women novelists
318:Summerhouse Trilogy III
314:The Fly in the Ointment
225:Archbishop of Liverpool
58:Liverpool School of Art
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590:Roman Catholic writers
308:Summerhouse Trilogy II
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298:Summerhouse Trilogy I
166:All-natural Baby Food
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40:, and Alexandra half
368:"Alice Thomas Ellis"
288:Unexplained Laughter
270:The Birds of the Air
130:Unexplained Laughter
440:The Washington Post
336:The Evening of Adam
155:described her work:
135:Summerhouse Trilogy
477:The New York Times
174:Caroline Blackwood
172:, co-written with
62:Church of Humanity
60:. A member of the
54:A Welsh Childhood.
22:Alice Thomas Ellis
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372:Fantastic Fiction
123:Her first novel,
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107:Clare Colvin
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66:slipped disc
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46:World War II
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550:2005 deaths
545:1932 births
252:lung cancer
50:North Wales
48:evacuee in
539:Categories
342:Fairy Tale
187:column in
485:0362-4331
449:0190-8286
185:Home Life
151:article,
26:Liverpool
316:, 1990 (
306:, 1988 (
296:, 1987 (
211:feminist
258:Fiction
203:liturgy
145:. In a
73:Chelsea
38:Finnish
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350:, 1999
344:, 1996
332:, 1992
326:, 1990
290:, 1985
284:, 1983
278:, 1982
272:, 1980
266:, 1977
229:church
490:8 May
454:8 May
416:8 May
377:8 May
355:Notes
42:Welsh
492:2023
481:ISSN
456:2023
445:ISSN
418:2023
379:2023
183:Her
78:coma
32:Life
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