Black Ship to Hell

Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey (12 June 1929 - 7 August 1995) was a British novelist, critic and campaigner for social reforms, including the rights of authors and animal rights.

Born in Ealing, West London, she was the only child of the novelist John Brophy and Charis Brophy (née Grundy), who was a teacher. During World War II she attended The Abbey School in Reading and St Paul’s Girls’ School in London. In 1947 she went on a scholarship to Oxford University (St Hugh’s College), but left in 1948 without a degree.

In 1953, when she was 25, her book of short stories The Crown Princess was published. It was followed in the same year by her first novel, Hackenfeller’s Ape.

In 1954 she married art historian Michael Levey. The couple had one daughter.

As well as a number of fiction novels, Brophy also wrote several non-fiction books and essays, including Mozart the Dramatist (1964) and (with her husband and Charles Osborne) Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without (1967). Her detailed study of Ronald Firbank, Prancing Novelist: A Defence of Fiction in the Form of a Critical Biography in Praise of Ronald Firbank, appeared in 1973.

She was a campaigner for several reforms. With Maureen Duffy she fought between 1972 and 1982 for authors’ Public Lending Right. She was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto and became president of the National Anti-Vivisection Society. In her book Baroque ‘n’ Roll (1987) she wrote about her struggle with multiple sclerosis (of which she knew the first symptoms in 1981), her bisexuality and the causes that she supported.

From 1987 her husband looked after her during her illness. She died on 7 August 1995, at Louth in Lincolnshire.