Angel by Elizabeth Taylor

Backlisted

Backlisted Podcast

Hobbies, Leisure, Books, Arts

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Angel (1957) by the English writer Elizabeth Taylor, is the subject of this special episode - and, as you'll hear, the next episode of Locklisted too.* Joining Andy and Una for a hotly disputed umpteenth appearance on the podcast is our guest, the critic and broadcaster Andrew Male. We last featured Elizabeth Taylor in 2019 when we discussed The Soul of Kindness (1964) on episode 102. Now we are revisiting this most Backlisted of authors, with perhaps her most Backlisted novel, Angel, about a character who could herself be the subject of a Backlisted episode, Angel Deverell, neglected lady novelist and sacred monster. The conversations we have had on Backlisted over the last decade return again and again to the themes of this magnificent book: the craft of writing; popularity with the public vs literary merit; separating the art from the artist; the problem of 'likability'; the burden of narrative; and the pitiless mechanics of the book business. Writers such as Hilary Mantel, Philip Hensher and Anita Brookner have all described Angel as a masterpiece and, without revealing the plot of this episode, and its spontaneous sequel, we could hardly agree more. * Sign up at www.patreon.com/backlisted to listen, join in with the book chat, listen without adverts and receive the show early. ** To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. *** For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm ****You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives new life to old books.
0:13.2	The book featured on today's show is Angel by Elizabeth Taylor, first published in 1957 by Peter Davis in the UK and the Viking Press in America.
0:25.7	I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously, and Inventry, an unreliable guide to my record collection.
0:33.7	And I'm Dr. Una McCormack, science fiction author and associate fellow of
0:39.2	Homerton College, Cambridge. Well, backlisted has been running for 10 years now, and in
0:45.1	that time, we've built up an incredible community of listeners, patrons and guests, not least
0:51.7	the gentleman joining us today, and me me for that matter, plus of course,
0:57.2	a back catalogue of...
0:59.2	So it begins.
1:01.8	We meet again, Andrew.
1:03.7	Plus, of course, a back catalogue of nearly 250 shows covering everything from the Maltese Falcon
1:09.7	to the Midwitch cuckoos.
1:12.4	One really easy, free way to support the podcast and to listen to episodes from our
1:17.6	backlist is to follow backlisted on whatever podcast app you use.
1:22.1	You can explore the back catalogue and it really helps us make the show more visible to new listeners.
1:28.6	In other words, please subscribe to Backlisted.
1:33.4	Now, before we start, I would like to pay tribute to our friend Professor Simon James,
1:39.8	who has died after a short illness.
1:43.4	Simon was a great supporter of Batlisted.
1:45.4	He was a lovely and learned man and, of course, a former guest on the show.
1:50.4	He joined us on episode 121 in September 2020
1:54.5	for a discussion of The Odd Women by George Gissing,
	...

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