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An authorised biography of novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard by Artemis Cooper will be released in 2016, John Murray has confirmed.
Publisher Roland Philipps acquired world rights to the book from Felicity Bryan at Felicity Bryan Associates last year.
Howard died aged 90 on 2nd January after a short illness. She is best known for the five-book Cazalet Chronicles, the latest volume of which – All Change – was published by Mantle just two months before she died.
Her three marriages included one to novelist Kingsley Amis.
Cooper, whose book will be published in September 2016, has completed interviews with Howard, her family and friends and has had full access to the late author’s papers.
She said: “Over the past year I have made several trips to interview Jane in Suffolk, staying as her guest for days at a time. She talked fluently and honestly about everything – her work, her reading, her family relationships, the men in her life, her marriages. She never pulled book back from my questions, even when they obliged her to relive some harrowing moments in her past.
“Her life is so packed with drama that it will tell itself; but I also hope my book will reflect her warmth and generosity, and celebrate the work of a clear-sighted and highly accomplished novelist.”
Cooper’s works include a biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor, titled Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, which was shortlisted for a National Book Award, Costa Biography of the Year and Waterstones Book of the Year when it was released in 2012, and has sold 62,594 copies in total to date.
She also, with travel writer Colin Thubron, edited The Broken Road, the final volume of Fermor’s travel trilogy.
Other books by Cooper include Cairo in the War, 1939-1945 and Writing at the Kitchen Table, the authorised biography of Elizabeth David.