Abstract
Lizzie and Emma Borden in the long, slow days before slaughter made them famous — unimaginable indeed, even by the narrator of ‘The Fall River Axe Murders’, the lead story in Angela Carter’s Saints and Strangers (1986). Not much else escapes, though as the narrator’s inquisitive, relentless, unabashedly modern intelligence broods over the legendary house at 92 Second Street, Fall River, and its sleeping inhabitants, two of whom will soon — very soon — die horribly. It is the last instant before 6:00 AM, 4 August, 1892; a hundred factory whistles ‘are just about to blast off, just this very second about to blass off … ‘ (Saints and Strangers, 12). Carter suspends time, lets murderer and victims sleep, while she ponders, digresses, speculates; long before the end we seem to know exactly why Lizzie will murder her parents, but then, in the last line, magic: ‘Outside, above, in the already burning air, see! the angel of death roosts on the roof-tree’ (Saints and Strangers, 31).
The girls stayed at home in their rooms, napping on their beds or repairing ripped hems, or sewing loose buttons more securely, or writing letters, or contemplating acts of charity among the deserving poor, or staring vacantly into space.
I can’t imagine what else they might do.
What the girls do when they are on their own is unimaginable to me. (Saints and Strangers, 13)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
A Bibliography of Writings by Angela Carter
Novels
Shadow Dance (London: Heinemann, 1966. American edition: Honeybuzzard. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967).
The Magic Toyshop (London: Heinemann, 1967. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968).
Several Perceptions (London: Heinemann, 1968. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968).
Heroes and Villains (London: Heinemann, 1969. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.
Love (London: Hart Davis, 1971; with a new ‘Afterword,’ 1987. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988).
The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman (London: Hart Davis, 1972. American edition: The War of Dreams. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1974).
The Passion of New Eve (London: Gollancz, 1977. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1977).
Nights at the Circus (London: Chatto and Windus, 1984. New York: Viking, 1985).
Wise Children (London: Chatto and Windus, 1991. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992).
Stories
Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (London: Quartet, 1974. New York: Harper, 1981).
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (London: Gollancz, 1979. New York: Harper, 1980).
Black Venus (London: Chatto and Windus, 1985. American edition: Saints and Strangers, containing a ‘different’ [i.e., substantially revised] version of ‘The Fall River Axe Murders,’ New York: Viking, 1986).
Wayward Girls and Wicked Women: An Anthology of Stories, ed. by Carter (London: Virago, 1986; contains her ‘The Loves of Lady Purple’.)
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’, Granta 25 (Autumn 1988): 179–97. Reprinted in Best English Short Stories 1989, ed. Giles Gordon and David Hughes (London: Heinemann, 1989. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989): 33–53.
‘Ashputtle: or, the Mother’s Ghost’, The Village Voice Literary Supplement (March 1990): 22–3.
Children’s Stories
Miss Z., The Dark Young Lady (London: Heinemann, 1970. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970).
The Donkey Prince (New York: Simon and Schuster).
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, trans. by Carter (London: Gollancz, 1977. New York: Avon, 1978).
Martin Lemans Comic and Curious Cats (London: Gollancz, 1979).
Moonshadow (London: Gollancz, 1982).
Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales, trans. by Carter (London: Gollancz, 1982. New York: Schocken, 1984).
Poetry
Unicorn (Leeds: Location Press, 1966).
Plays
The Company of Wolves (screenplay), with Neil Jordan, 1984.
Nonfiction
The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (London: Virago, 1979. American edition: The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography, New York: Pantheon, 1979).
Nothing Sacred: Selected Writings (London: Virago, 1982).
‘Sugar Daddy’. Granta 8 (1983): 179–90.
Images of Frida Kahlo, introduction by Carter (London: The Redstone Press, 1989).
The Virago Book of Fairy Tales, edited by Carter (London: Virago, 1990. American edition: The Old Wives’ Book of Fairy Tales. New York: Random House, 1990).
Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, introduction by Angela Carter (London: Virago, 1991).
Charlotte Bronte: Villette, introduction by Angela Carter (London: Virago, 1991).
Essays and Reviews
‘Bob Dylan on Tour; or, Huck Finn reaches Puberty’, London Magazine (August 1966): 100–1.
‘A Happy Bloomsday’, New Society (8 July 1982): 65–6.
Tea and Sympathy’ [A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Letters and Diaries by Barbara Pym], Washington Post Book World (1 July 1984): 1; 5.
‘Ludic Cube’ [Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words by Milorad Pavic, trans. by Christina Pribicevic-Zoric], London Review of Books (1 June 1989): 8, 10.
‘40 Means You Cry Over Spilt Milk’ [Forty-Seventeen by Frank Moorhouse], The New York Times Book Review (13 August 1989): 3.
‘Brooksie and Fausf’ [Louise Brooks by Barry Paris], The London Review of Books (8 March 1990): 12–13.
‘White Nights and Golden Days’ [The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor by John Barth]. The Washington Post Book World (3 February 1991): 1; 10.
A Bibliography of Writings about Angela Carter Articles and Reviews
Alexander, Fiona, ‘Myths, Dreams and Nightmares’, Contemporary Women Novelists (London: Edward Arnold, 1990): 61–75.
Bradfield, Scott, ‘Angela Carter on the Bawdy Bits’, Elle (January 1992): 70.
Bryant, Sylvia, ‘Re-constructing Oedipus Through “Beauty and the Beast”’, Criticism 31, 4 (Fall 1989): 439–53.
Clark, Robert, ‘Angela Carter’s Desire Machine’, Women’s Studies 14 (1987): 147–61.
Duncker, Patricia, ‘Re-imagining the Fairy Tales: Angela Carter’s Bloody Chambers’, Literature and History: A Journal for the Humanities, 10,1 (Spring, 1984): 3–14.
Goldsworthy, Kerryn, ‘Angela Carter’, Meanjin 44, 1 (March 1985): 4–13.
Gorra, Michael, ‘Angela Carter’s Backstage Magic’ [Wise Children], The Boston Globe (5 January 1992): B39; B42.
Hamilton, Alex, ‘Sade and Prejudice’, Guardian (30 March 1979): 15.
Harron, Mary, ‘“I’m a Socialist, damn it! How Can you Expect me to Be Interested in Fairies”’, Guardian (25 September 1984): 10.
Kendrick, Walter, ‘Rough Magic: The Many Splendours of Angela Carter’, Village Voice Literary Supplement (October 1986): 17–19.
Landon, Brooks, ‘Eve at the End of the World: Sexuality and the Reversal of Expectations in Novels by Joanna Russ, Angela Carter, and Thomas Berger’; in Erotic Universe: Sexuality and Fantastic Literature (ed. Donald Palumbo) (New York, 1986): 61–74.
Mars-Jones, Adam, ‘From Wonders to Prodigies’, Times Literary Supplement (TLS) (28 September 1984): 1083.
McEwan, Ian, ‘Sweet Smell of Excess’, Sunday Times Magazine (9 September 1984): 42–4.
Mortimer, John and Angela Carter, ‘The Stylish Prime of Miss Carter’, Sunday Times (London) (24 January 1982): 36.
Parrinder Patrick, ‘Ifs Only a Paper Moon’ [Wise Children], London Review of Books (13 June 1991): 3.
Paterson, Moira, ‘Flights of Fancy in Balham’, Observer Magazine (9 November 1986): 42–43; 45.
Punter, David, ‘Angela Carter: Supersessions of the Masculine’, Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 25, 4 (Summer 1984): 209–22.
Rose, Ellen Cronan, ‘Through the Looking Glass: When Women Tell Fairy Tales’, in The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development, ed. Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsch, and Elizabeth Langland (Hanover, NH, 1983): 209–27.
Sage, Lorna, ‘Angela Carter’, Dictionary of Literary Biography 14: 205–12.
Sage, Lorna, ‘The Savage Sideshow’, New Review 4 (June/July 1977): 51–7.
Schmidt, Ricarda, ‘The Journey of the Subject in Angela Carter’s Fiction’, Textual Practice 3, 1 (Spring 1989):L 56–75.
Stott, Catherine, ‘Runaway to the Land of Promise’, Guardian (10 August 1972): 9.
Warner, Marina, ‘That Which Is Spoken’ [The Virago Book of Fairy Tales], London Review of Books (8 November 1990): 21–2.
Watts, Janet, ‘Sade and the Sexual Struggle’, Observer Magazine (25 March 1979): 54–5.
Wilson, Robert Rawdon, ‘SLIP PAGE: Angela Carter, in/out/in the Postmodern Nexus’, Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 20, 4 (October 1989): 96–114.
Interviews
Ann Sintow, ‘Conversations with a Necromancer’, Village Voice Literary Supplement (June 1989): 14–16.
Miscellaneous
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series 12: 103–5.
Contemporary Literary Criticism 1: 75–80.
Contemporary Literary Criticism 5: 101–3.
Contemporary Literary Criticism 41: 109–22.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Robert E. Hosmer Jr.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kendrick, W. (1993). The Real Magic of Angela Carter. In: Hosmer, R.E. (eds) Contemporary British Women Writers. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22565-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22565-1_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-22567-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22565-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)