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Claire Harman

@claireharman.bsky.social
148 followers 54 following 39 posts

Biographer, critic, emeritus Professor. Books on Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Katherine Mansfield. Also Murder by the Book, a Victorian literary true-crime. www.claireharman.com

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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
'Having set out to clean the glass of her shop cupboard, I was fired to go on and clean all the windows. She was not as pleased as I was. Indeed, it is seldom that the pleasure of those who are ministered to equals the pleasure of those who minister' Sylvia Townsend Warner, Diary, 10 August 1960
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
This was a lovely opportunity to have an extended conversation about the genius of Emily Bronte, in the expert company of Alex Clark and Lucy Dallas: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
The TLS Podcast
Society & Culture Podcast · Updated twice weekly · A weekly podcast on books and culture brought to you by the writers and editors of the Times Literary Supplement. To read more, welcome to the TLS. ...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
'the awesomeness and strangeness of having exclusive access to yourself, and the place of that self in the cosmos': some thoughts on Emily Bronte's untrammelled mind: www.the-tls.com/lives/biogra...
the-tls.com
Freeing life from facts
A striking image of the actors Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, from the latest film version of Wuthering Heights, appeared on buses all over the country this spring, advertising a streaming service. N...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Three outstanding memoirs are in the running for this year's TLS Ackerley Prize; Joe Dunthorne Children of Radium, Geoff Dyer Homework and Charlotte Northall Practicing Dying. The winner will be announced at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, on 23 July. eventbrite.co.uk/e/tls-ackerl...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
'Perhaps the strangest answer to the woman question yet proposed' - celebrating Sylvia Townsend Warner's extraordinary debut novel Lolly Willowes, 100 years on: @stwsociety.bsky.social @visiblewomenuk.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
newstatesman.com
Sylvia Townsend Warner's obscure forces
Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes, published a century ago, is a powerful reverie on women’s interwar status
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
A large hoard of unpublished poems was discovered in the attic after Iris Murdoch's death. What did she think about them? My review of the latest addition to her oeuvre in this week's @thetls.bsky.social: www.the-tls.com/literature/p...
the-tls.com
Soliloquies
In 2016, the scholars Anne Rowe and Miles Leeson were invited to inspect papers remaining in Iris Murdoch’s last home in Oxford, and among the cobwebbed
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Some powerfully resonant quotes from 'Salvation by Words' near the end of @backlisted.bsky.social on Iris Murdoch: 'Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify. The good artist is a vehicle of truth' @irismurdoch.bsky.social www.backlisted.fm/episodes/256...
backlisted.fm
256. The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch — Backlisted
Ian Patterson, author of  Books: A Manifesto  (W&N), returns to Backlisted for a joyful discussion of Iris Murdoch and her sixteenth novel  The Sacred and Profane Love Machine &nbsp...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
This is happening tomorrow! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
theguardian.com
Dorset to unveil statue of feminist writer and LGBTQ+ pioneer – and a cat
Tribute to Sylvia Townsend Warner follows campaign to nominate overlooked women
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
One of the last stories - possibly the very last? - from the pen of Sylvia Townsend Warner, written in 1977, published this week in @thetls.bsky.social: www.the-tls.com/literature-b...
the-tls.com
The Pursuit and the End
Prolific and versatile for more than forty years, Sylvia Townsend Warner nonetheless surprised herself when, nearing eighty and recently bereaved, she started writing about fairies and elfins. Her fir...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Happy Birthday Sylvia Townsend Warner, born 6 December 1893. Here she is, reciting her poem Gloriana Dying, recorded in Frome Vauchurch in February 1978 by Fraser Steel and Michael Schmidt, two months before her death: poetryarchive.org/explore/?key...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Brontë fans and others might enjoy this free online event organised by the wonderful Toronto Public Library Book Club, a midwinter gothic treat in honour of the masterpiece Jane Eyre. Friday 19 December - book now: www.eventbrite.ca/e/classics-o...
eventbrite.ca
Classics of Gothic & Horror: Jane Eyre
Join novelist and screenwriter Moira Buffini and critic Claire Harman as they discuss Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece with Naben Ruthnum.
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
1/12 Jane Austen breaks her silence in celebrity interview! A thread in celebration of #JaneAusten250 Questions posed by The Age: answers from Jane Austen (as told to Claire Harman), illustration by Chris Riddell, from cover of the audiobook, Jane's Fame.
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
27 October 2025 - To celebrate Jane Austen's 250th anniversary, Jane's Fame, the landmark study of Austen's authorship and reputation history, is now available as an audiobook, read by the author. Available on Spotify, Apple Books, BookBeat, Kobo, Everand & more.
Illustration by Chris Riddell
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
'What can you make of a person so determined from the start to hold a stand-off with posterity?' - my review of The Letters of Muriel Spark in the September issue of Literary Review: literaryreview.co.uk/fighting-wor...
literaryreview.co.uk
Claire Harman - Fighting Words
Claire Harman: Fighting Words - The Letters of Muriel Spark, Volume 1: 1944-1963 by Dan Gunn
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
Another chance to hear Katie Hims's enchanting 'And Other Stories: Katherine Mansfield', featuring Hattie Morahan as KM, broadcast on R4 this afternoon: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bbc.co.uk
BBC Radio 4 - And Other Stories: Katherine Mansfield, 2. Daughters of the Late Colonel, The Garden Party, Ma Parker & Her First Ball.
Stories of a father’s disapproval, a garden party, grief and short-lived joy.
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
'Thought followed thought - star followed star Through boundless regions on, While one sweet influence, near and far, Thrilled through and proved us one' Happy Birthday, Emily Brontë, genius poet, born 30 July 1818
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
'A young woman made of highly flammable material' - my review of The Letters of Emily Dickinson, for Literary Review: literaryreview.co.uk/postmark-amh...
literaryreview.co.uk
Claire Harman - Postmark Amherst
Claire Harman: Postmark Amherst - The Letters of Emily Dickinson by Cristanne Miller & Domhnall Mitchell (edd)
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
'We think she's a moralist, but surely she's far too worldly for that. The degree to which she might be misunderstood is already calculated by the author, and allowed for.' The Real Jane Austen, from 2011: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/notting-hill...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
'Austen’s chameleon quality makes her eminently safe for mass consumption; a life companion, or, if you’re seeking one, life coach'. My review of Janet Todd's Living with Jane Austen, in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature-b...
the-tls.co.uk
Our secret friend
Jane Austen’s novels are full of readers: Catherine Morland, Anne Elliot, Charlotte Heywood, Fitzwilliam Darcy, who, piqued at being disturbed by Miss Bingley, reminds her that the most important task...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
I'm delighted to be taking part in this Bronte event at fabulous Seamus Heaney Homeplace, in just two weeks' time.
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
On Deborah Levy's 'intellectually flirty' collection of essays, for this week's TLS: www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...
the-tls.co.uk
The Position of Spoons by Deborah Levy | Book review | The TLS
This short collection of occasional writing, gathered from a career spanning more than forty years, provides vivid, albeit oblique, insights into Deborah
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
'I, so wary of traps, So skilful to outwit Springes and pitfalls set Am caught now, perhaps' Sylvia Townsend Warner asleep with Thomas the cat, caught by her lover Valentine Ackland. From 'The True Voice of the Heart', now online at journals.uclpress.co.uk/stw/article/...
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Claire Harman @claireharman.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
'The hidden treasure within this story is the powerful, barely expressed knowledge of each other that both the Misses Austen took to their graves'; my Literary Review piece on Gill Hornby's 'Miss Austen', premiering tonight on BBC 1. literaryreview.co.uk/sense-sister...
literaryreview.co.uk
Claire Harman - Sense & Sisterhood
Claire Harman: Sense & Sisterhood - Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
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