Elizabeth Jane Howard 1923 – 2014

The novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard died yesterday at the age of 90. She is most famous for the series of 14 Cazelet novels; the last of which, All Change, was published last autumn. Here is a snippet from Nicola Shulman’s review of the book:

‘If there is anything in publishing to melt the realities of book reviewing into this delicious scene it’s the prospect of a new Cazalet novel. Not only do I get to read it in plain sight, but the 19-year break since the last one necessitates a re-read of the whole lot. Days and days, that means, immersed in the lives of that many-petalled flower of the home counties, the Cazalet family. So that’s 2,500 pages, ten whole Christmases at honey-coloured Home Place (1937-47) with the Brig, the Duchy, the self-sacrificing Rachel and her adoring friend Sid, the trio of handsome sons, extensively wived and mistressed and the impassioned granddaughters, Polly, Clary, Louise and Lydia et al, sharing secrets and sticks of tangee lipstick in the frosty morning light.