Critical Anthology - The Bloody Chamber - Task Two:

Researching Angela Carter:

During which years was she alive? 

Angela Carter was alive between the years 1940 and 1992, she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1991 which resulted in her premature death when she was only 52.

Where has she lived?

She was born in Eastbourne and lived there up until the age of 18 when she left home to go and study English Literature at the University of Bristol. However, later on in her life and career, when her marriage to her first husband was declining she traveled to Japan to distance herself from him. She stayed there for two years and it inspired three of her later novels, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (published in 1972), her short story collection Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (published in 1974), and the 1982 text Nothing Sacred ("Carter would claim the experience of gender relations in Japan forced her to become radicalized"). She also traveled through Asia, Europe and North America.

How is Carter linked to Jane Eyre? 

Carter was supposedly going to write a sequel to Jane Eyre, but passed away during the process of writing it. It was going to be about Adele, Jane's pupil.

What genres has she written in? 

Angela Carter has written in many genres, and for The Bloody Chamber it can be considered to be Postmodern Feminist Gothic. However she has also written in the fantasy genre and even wrote a critical piece on the Marquis de Sade.

In a list of 50 great writers since 1945, where did The Times rank Carter? 

She was ranked as the tenth greatest writer since 1945.

Name some of Carter’s influences. 

Carter had many influences that inspired her work.

"Her influences included Defoe, Blake, Swift, Poe, Carroll, Melville, Mary Shelley, the French symbolists, the surrealists, Barthes, Borges and Calvino. She did not have much time for Dickens (a strip-cartoonist) or Austen (whose mannered charm she found deadly)."
[source: http://johnhopper.hubpages.com/hub/Angela-Carter]