Margaret Forster

Margaret Forster was born in Carlisle in 1938. Educated at the County High School, she won an open scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, where she read history. Her many novels include Georgy Girl, The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury, Private Papers, Mother Can You Hear Me?, Have the Men Had Enough?, Lady's Maid, The Battle for Christabel, Mothers' Boys and Shadow Baby, all of which are published by Penguin. Margaret Forster has written numerous works of non-fiction, including a biography of Bonnie Prince Charlie, entitled The Rash Adventurer; a highly praised 'autobiography' of Thackeray, published in 1978; Significant Sisters (1986), which traces the lives and careers of eight pioneering women; a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which won the Royal Society of Literature's Award for 1988 under the Heinemann bequest; a selection of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry; her critically acclaimed biography Daphne du Maurier, which was awarded the 1994 Fawcett Book Prize; and Hidden Lives, a family memoir, which was nominated nine times in 1995 as Book of the Year and is also published by Penguin.

Margaret Forster lives in London and the Lake District. She is married to writer and broadcaster Hunter Davies and they have three children.