Abstract
Susan Hill, now concentrating on writing plays and fiction for children, as well as idylls of country life, is chiefly known for a series of intensely realized narratives composed over a brief six-year period:
Quite suddenly, a door opened, something fell into place — it’s hard to know exactly how to put it — and I began to write as I had known somehow that I could. Between 1968 and 1974 — when I look back, I am astonished at how short a time it actually was — I wrote six novels, two collections of short stories, and half a dozen full-length radio plays. (Family, 31)
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A Bibliography of Writings by Susan Hill
Novels
The Enclosure (London: Hutchinson, 1961).
Do Me a Favour (London: Hutchinson, 1963).
Gentleman and Ladies (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968; New York: Walker, 1969).
A Change for the Better (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1969).
I’m the King of the Castle (London: Hamish Hamilton; New York: Viking Press, 1970).
Strange Meeting (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971; New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972).
The Bird of Night (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972; New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973).
In the Springtime of the Year (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1974; New York: Saturday Review Press, 1974).
The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1983; Boston: David R. Godine) with illustrations by John Lawrence, 1986.
Air and Angels (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991).
Short Stories
The Albatross and Other Stories (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971; New York: Saturday Review Press, 1975).
The Custodian (London: Covent Garden Press, 1972).
A Bit of Singing and Dancing (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1973).
‘Kielty’s’, in Winter’s Tales 20, edited by A. D. MacLean (London: Macmillan;
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975).
Plays
The Cold Country and Other plays for Radio (includes The End of Summer, Lizard in the Grass, Consider the Lilies, Strip Jack Naked) (London: BBC, 1975).
On the Face of It (broadcast, 1975). Published in Act I, edited by David Self and Ray Speakman (London: Hutchinson, 1981).
The Ramshackle Company, for children; produced London, 1981.
Chances, broadcast, 1981; produced London, 1983.
Radio Plays
Miss Lavender is Dead (1970); Taking Leave (1971); A Change for the Better (1971); The End of Summer (1971); Lizard in the Grass (1971); The Cold Country (1972); White Elegy (1973); Consider the Lilies (1973); A Window on the World (1974); Strip Jack Naked (1974); Mr Proudham and Mr Sleight (1974); On the Face of It (1975); The Summer of the Giant Sunflower (1977); The Sound that Time Makes (1980); Here Comes the Bride (1980); Out in the Cold (1982); Autumn (1985); Winter (1985).
Television Play
The Badness Within Him (1980).
Other
The Magic Apple Tree: A Country Year (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982; American edition: New York: Holt Rinehart, 1983).
Through the Kitchen Window (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984).
One Night at a Time (for children) (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984).
Bell, Adrian, Corduroy, introduction by Susan Hill (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
The Lighting of the Lamps (a collection of essays, introductions, reviews, and plays) (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987).
Shakespeare Country, with photographs by Robert Talbot in association with Robin Whiteman (London: Michael Joseph, 1987).
Spirit of the Cotswolds (London: Michael Joseph, 1988; New York: Viking, 1988).
Family (London: Michael Joseph, 1989).
Autobiographic Statement. Programme notes to the Fortune Theatre production of The Woman in Black (London: A Proscenium Production, 1989).
‘Reliving a Glorious Pasf [The Shining Company by Rosemary Sutcliff; Shadown Under the Sea by Geoffrey Trease; Jo in the Middle by Jean Ure; The Haunted Sand by Hugh Scott; The Conjuror’s Game by Catherine Fisher; Double Vision by Diana Hendry], The Sunday Times (15 July 1990): 8; 14. (A composite review by Susan Hill.)
Edited Collections
Hardy, Thomas, The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales, edited by Susan Hill (London: Penguin, 1979).
New Stories 5, edited by Susan Hill and Isabel Quigly (London: Hutchinson, 1980).
People: Essays and Poems, edited by Susan Hill (London: Chatto and Windus, 1983).
Ghost Stories, edited by Susan Hill (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1983).
The Walker Book of Ghost Stories, ed. by Susan Hill (London: Walker, 1990). Published in the United States as The Random House Book of Ghost Stories, ed. by Susan Hill (New York: Random House, 1991).
A Bibliography of Writings about Susan Hill
Atwood, Margaret, ‘In the Springtime of the Year’, New York Times Book Review (5 May 1974): 7.
Bann, Stephen, ‘Mystery and Imagination: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill and illustrated by John Lawrence’, London Review of Books (17–30 November 1983): 12.
Brett, Guy, ‘Home Truths: New Works by Susan Hill’, Studio International, 1012,(1986): 60–1.
Christiansen, Eric, ‘The Magic Apple Tree’, The Spectator (15 May 1982): 20.
Clare, Dr Anthony, ‘Raw Material’, from the interview with Susan Hill ‘In the Psychiatrist’s Chair’, Listener (1 September 1988): 14–15.
De ‘Ath, Wilfred, ‘The Springtime of Susan Hill’, Illustrated London News 262 (May 1974): 51–2.
Fainwright, Ruth, ‘The Albatross and Other Stories’, Times Literary Supplement (5 March 1971): 261.
Hunter, Jim, ‘A Bit of Dancing and Singing’, Listener (29 March 1973): 423–4.
Ireland, K. P., ‘Rite at the Center: Narrative Duplication in Susan Hill’s In the Springtime of the Year’, Journal of Narrative Technique, Eastern Michigan University, (Fall, 1983): 172–80.
Jackson, Rosemary, ‘Cold Enclosures: the Fiction of Susan Hill’, Twentieth-Century Women Novelists, ed. Thomas F. Staley (New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1982): 81–103.
Muir, Kenneth, ‘Susan Hill’s Fiction’, The Uses of Fiction: Essays on the Modern Novel in Honour of Arnold Kettle, ed. Douglas Jefferson and Graham Martin (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1982): 274–85.
Nightingale, Benedict, ‘A Change for the Better’, Observer (21 September 1969): 23.
Theroux, Paul, ‘The Bird of Night’, The New York Times Book Review (27 May
1973): 26.
Times Literary Supplement (anonymous), ‘Gentleman and Ladies’, (9 September 1962): 129.
Times Literary Supplement (anonymous), ‘Strange Meeting’, 29 October 1971): 1355.
Times Literary Supplement (anonymous), ‘Weathering the Calm’, (25 January 1974): 69.
Tomalin, Claire, ‘Strange Meeting, a Gallery of Types’, Observer (17 October 1971): 33.
Tomalin, Claire, ‘The Albatross and Other Stories’, Observer (14 February 1971): 24.
Thwaite, Anthony, ‘The Bird of Night’, Observer (20 January 1974): 26.
Trotter, Stewart, ‘The Albatross and Other Stories’, Listener (11 February 1971): 185.
Van Greenway, Peter, ‘Gentlemen [sic] and Ladies’, New York Times Book Review (30 March 1969).
Waugh, Auberon, ‘The Bird of Night’, Spectator (16 September 1972): 434.
Interviews
BBC Radio 4, Dr Anthony Clare talked to Susan Hill ‘In the Psychiatrist’s Chair’ (31 August 1988).
Miscellaneous
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 4, 226–8.
Contemporary Novelists 4th Edition, 417–18.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 14. Catherine Wells Cole, ‘Susan Hill’ (Detroit, 1983): 394–400.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1993 Robert E. Hosmer Jr.
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Hofer, E.H. (1993). Enclosed Structures, Disclosed Lives: The Fictions of Susan Hill. In: Hosmer, R.E. (eds) Contemporary British Women Writers. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22565-1_7
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