Carter, Angela Olive

Carter, Angela Olive, née Stalker (1940–92), English novelist, poet, and essayist; born in Eastbourne and educated at Bristol University. Her work often combines the macabre with the wittily surreal and draws heavily on symbolism and themes derived from fairy tales and folk myths. The Magic Toyshop (1967, filmed 1986) associated her with the tradition of magic realism. Succeeding novels developed further a characteristic neo-Gothic ambience, often underpinned by a strong, but never intrusive, feminist sensibility. They included Several Perceptions (1968), Heroes and Villains (1969), and The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman (1972). Nights at the Circus (1984), about a female Victorian circus performer called Fevvers who can fly, confirmed her as a gifted literary fabulist, while her ability to evoke and adapt the darker resonances of traditional forms of fantasy was brilliantly deployed in The Bloody Chamber and other stories (1979), which includes her well-known ‘The Company of Wolves’ (filmed 1984). Her last novel, Wise Children (1991), was an extravagant and bawdy chronicle of two theatrical families. Black Venus (1985) is a collection of short stories. A selection of her critical writings, Expletives Deleted, was published posthumously in 1992. A further posthumous collection of stories and sketches was American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993).