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Mary Renault (pronounced [??no?lt] Ren-olt) (4 September 1905 – 13 December 1983) born Mary Challans, was an English
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 writer
Writer

A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms....
 best known for her historical novel
Historical novel

A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author....
s set in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
. In addition to vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus
Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
, Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 and Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
, she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander.

was born at Dacre Lodge, 49 Plashet Road, Forest Gate
Forest Gate

Forest Gate is a residential area in the London Borough of Newham.Its name is derived from a southern gate of Epping Forest which once stretched continuously down from Epping....
, Essex
Essex

Essex is a counties of England in the East of England England. The county town is Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, Essex, close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches ....
, (now Greater London
Greater London

Greater London is the top-level administrative subdivision covering London, England. The administrative area was officially created in 1965 and covers the City of London , the City of Westminster and the other 31 London boroughs....
). She was educated at St Hugh's College, Oxford
St Hugh's College, Oxford

St Hugh's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford of the University of Oxford, England, located on St Margaret's Road, North Oxford....
, then an all-women's college, receiving a degree in English in 1928.






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Quotations


Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.

The Bull from the Sea (1962)

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

The Mask of Apollo (1966)

It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.

The Praise Singer (1978)

You can make an audience see nearly anything, if you yourself believe in it.

The Mask of Apollo (1966)





Encyclopedia


Mary Renault (pronounced [??no?lt] Ren-olt) (4 September 1905 – 13 December 1983) born Mary Challans, was an English
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 writer
Writer

A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms....
 best known for her historical novel
Historical novel

A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author....
s set in Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
. In addition to vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus
Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
, Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
 and Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
, she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander.

Biography

She was born at Dacre Lodge, 49 Plashet Road, Forest Gate
Forest Gate

Forest Gate is a residential area in the London Borough of Newham.Its name is derived from a southern gate of Epping Forest which once stretched continuously down from Epping....
, Essex
Essex

Essex is a counties of England in the East of England England. The county town is Chelmsford, and the highest point of the county is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, Essex, close to the Hertfordshire border, which reaches ....
, (now Greater London
Greater London

Greater London is the top-level administrative subdivision covering London, England. The administrative area was officially created in 1965 and covers the City of London , the City of Westminster and the other 31 London boroughs....
). She was educated at St Hugh's College, Oxford
St Hugh's College, Oxford

St Hugh's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford of the University of Oxford, England, located on St Margaret's Road, North Oxford....
, then an all-women's college, receiving a degree in English in 1928. In 1933, she began training as a nurse
Nurse

A nurse is a healthcare professional, who along with other health care professionals, is responsible for the treatment, safety, and recovery of Acute or Chronic ill or injured people, health maintenance of the healthy, and treatment of life-threatening emergencies in a wide range of health care settings....
 at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary. During her training, she met Julie Mullard, a fellow nurse with whom she established a life-long romantic relationship.

She worked as a nurse while beginning a writing career, treating Dunkirk
Dunkirk

Dunkirk is a Communes of France in the Nord Departments of France in northern France.It lies 10 kilometres from the Belgium border. Population of the city at the 1999 census was 70,850 inhabitants ....
 evacuees at the Winford Emergency Hospital in Bristol, and working in Radcliffe Infirmary's brain surgery ward until 1945. She published her first novel, Purposes of Love, in 1939; it had a contemporary setting, like her other early novels, which novelist Linda Proud described as "a strange combination of Platonism and hospital romance".

In 1948, after her novel Return to Night won a MGM prize worth $150,000, she and Mullard emigrated to South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
, where they remained for the rest of their lives. There, according to Proud, they found a community of gay expatriates who had "escaped the repressive attitudes towards homosexuality in Britain for the comparatively liberal atmosphere of Durban.... Mary and Julie found themselves able to set up home together in this new land without causing the outrage they had sometimes provoked at home." (Renault and Mullard were critical of the less liberal aspects of their new home, participating in the Black Sash
Black Sash

The Black Sash was a non-violent white women's resistance organization founded in 1955 in South Africa by Jean Sinclair. The Black Sash initially campaigned against the removal of Coloured or mixed race voters from the voters' roll in the Cape Province by the National Party government....
 movement against apartheid in the 1950s.)

It was in South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
 that Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time — in her last contemporary novel, The Charioteer (1953), and then in her first historical novel, The Last of the Wine (1956) , the story of two young Athenians
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
 who study under Socrates
Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
 and fight against Sparta
Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
. Both these books had male protagonists, as did all her later works that included homosexual themes; her sympathetic treatment of love between men would win Renault a wide gay readership.

Her subsequent historical novels were all set in ancient Greece
Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
, including a pair of novels about the mythological hero Theseus
Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
, and a trilogy about the career of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
. Although not a classicist
Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean World; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity ....
 by training, she was admired in her day for her scrupulous recreations of the Greek world. Some of the history presented in her fiction (and in her nonfiction work, The Nature of Alexander) has been called into question: her novels about Theseus rely on the controversial theories of Robert Graves
Robert Graves

Robert Ranke Graves was an England poet, translator and novelist. During his long life, he produced more than 140 works. He was the son of the Anglo-Irish writer Alfred Perceval Graves and Amalie von Ranke, a niece of the famous German historian Leopold von Ranke....
, and her portrait of Alexander has been criticized as uncritical and romanticized.. According to professor Kevin Kopelson, "...Renault mischaracterize[s} pederastic relationships as heroic."

Defying centuries of admiration for Demosthenes
Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a prominent Greeks statesman and orator of History of Athens. His oratorys constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC....
 as a great orator, Renault portrayed him as a cruel, corrupt and cowardly demagogue.

On April 18, 2006, UK, BBC 4 aired a one hour documentary, Mary Renault – Love and War in Ancient Greece, with this description:
A profile of the novelist whose books on ancient Greece convincingly brought the world of Plato and Socrates back to life. Sue MacGregor and Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone

William Oliver Stone is an United Statesn film director and screenwriter. Stone came to prominence as a director with a series of films about the Vietnam War, in which he had participated as an American infantry soldier, and his work continues to focus frequently on contemporary political and cultural issues, often controversially....
 are among the contributors to this film examining how Mary Renault's popular novels set in ancient Greece inspired a new generation of readers in the 1950s.


Mary Renault died at Cape Town
Cape Town

Cape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, forming part of the metropolitan municipality of the City of Cape Town. It is the provincial Capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislature capital of South Africa, where the Parliament of South Africa and many government offices are located....
, South Africa
South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
, on 13 December, 1983.

Bibliography


Contemporary fiction

  • Purposes of Love (US title: Promise of Love) (1939)
  • Kind Are Her Answers (1940)
  • The Friendly Young Ladies (US title: The Middle Mist) (1943)
  • Return to Night (1947)
  • The North Face
    The North Face (novel)

    The North Face is a 1948 heterosexual romance novel by Mary Renault, who later became famous for historical novels set in ancient Greece and featuring homosexual love between male characters....
     (1948)
  • The Charioteer (1953)


Historical novels

  • The Last of the Wine
    The Last of the Wine

    The Last of the Wine is Mary Renault's first novel set in Ancient Greece, the setting that would become her most important arena. The novel was published in 1956 and is the second of her works to feature male homosexuality as a major theme....
     (1956) — set in Athens during the Peloponnesian War
    Peloponnesian War

    The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
    ; the narrator is a student of Sokrates
  • The King Must Die
    The King Must Die

    For the song by Elton John, see The King Must Die The King Must Die is a 1958 Bildungsroman and historical novel by Mary Renault that traces the early life and adventures of Theseus, a hero in Greek mythology....
     (1958) — the mythical Theseus
    Theseus

    For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
     up to his father's death
  • The Bull from the Sea
    The Bull from the Sea

    The Bull from the Sea is the sequel to Mary Renault's The King Must Die. It continues the story of the Greek mythology hero Theseus after his return from Crete....
     (1962) — the remainder of Theseus' life
  • The Mask of Apollo
    The Mask of Apollo

    The Mask of Apollo is a historical novel written by Mary Renault. It is set in ancient Greece shortly after the Peloponnesian War. The story involves the world of live theatre and political intrigue in the Mediterranean at the time....
     (1966) — an actor at the time of Plato
    Plato

    Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
     and Dionysius the Younger (brief appearance by Alexander near the end of the book)
  • Fire from Heaven
    Fire From Heaven

    Fire From Heaven is a 1969 historical novel by Mary Renault about the childhood and youth of Alexander the Great. It reportedly was a major inspiration for the Oliver Stone film Alexander ....
     (1969) — Alexander the Great
    Alexander the Great

    Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
     from the age of four up to his father's death
  • The Persian Boy
    The Persian Boy

    The Persian Boy is a 1972 historical novel written by Mary Renault and narrated by Bagoas , a young Persian from an Aristocracy family who is captured by his father's enemies, castrated, and sold as a slave to the king Darius III, who makes him his favorite....
     (1972) — from Bagoas
    Bagoas (courtier)

    Bagoas was a eunuch in the Persian Empire in the 4th Century BCE. He was reportedly the lover of Darius III of Persia and after Darius' death, of Alexander the Great....
    's perspective; Alexander the Great
    Alexander the Great

    Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
     after the conquest of Persia
  • The Praise Singer
    The Praise Singer

    The Praise Singer is a historical novel by Mary Renault first published in 1978. Its narrator and main character is the real-life lyric poet Simonides of Ceos, whose life spanned the transition from an Oral tradition to a written culture in Ancient Greece....
     (1978) — the poet Simonides of Ceos
    Simonides of Ceos

    Simonides of Ceos , Greek Lyric poetry poet, was born at Ioulis on Kea . He was included, along with Sappho and Pindar, in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria....
  • Funeral Games (1981) — Alexander's successors
    Diadochi

    The Diadochi were the rival successors of Alexander the Great, and their Wars of the Diadochi followed Alexander's death. This was the beginning of the Hellenistic period of Greek history, the time when many people who were not Greek themselves adopted Greek philosophy and styles, Greek urban life, and aspects of the Greek religion....


Nonfiction

  • The Nature of Alexander
    The Nature of Alexander

    The Nature of Alexander is the only nonfiction work by celebrated novelist Mary Renault .The book is a biography of King Alexander the Great, ruler of Macedon, Egypt, Israel, Persia, Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan, Mesopotamia, Pakistan and other lands....
     (1975) — a biography of Alexander the Great
  • Lion in the Gateway: The Heroic Battles of the Greeks and Persians at Marathon, Salamis, and Thermopylae (1964) — about the Persian Wars


Radio

The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea have been adapted as an 11-part BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
 serial entitled The King Must Die.

External links



See also


  • Philippics