Kate Levey
@brophylevey.bsky.social
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Daughter of writer and activist Brigid Brophy (1929-1995)
pinned post!
Now we're in 2026, it's *ONLY three years* until the centenary of Brigid Brophy's birth, so here's to 2029! Photo of Brigid Brophy (and Antinous) by J. Lewinski.
about 1 month ago
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Valentine hearts.
1 day ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
David Hayden
17 days ago
DJ Taylor's 2018 radio doc 'The Advance Guard of the Avant-Garde' on experimental 1960s British writers: BS Johnson, Ann Quin, Eva Figes, Brigid Brophy, Rosemary Tonks, Prynne & C Brooke-Rose. Views from Jen Hodgson, Jonathan Coe, Eimear McBride & Jeremy Noel-Tod.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
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Archive on 4 - The Advance Guard of the Avant-garde - BBC Sounds
DJ Taylor tells the story of an influential group of experimental 1960s British writers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b09tybwl
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Oh- how *wonderful* is this? Thank you
@nguthrie.bsky.social
add a skeleton here at some point
22 days ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Dave Appleby
23 days ago
Just finished my first Brigid Brophy book 'Hackenfeller's Ape' ... 73 years after it was published. Better late than never! Excited to explore more by this author. Here's my review:
bit.ly/49Qo7Kl
#Booksky
💙📚
#Books
📚
#Literaturesky
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"Hackenfeller's Ape" by Brigid Brophy
In this novel, London Zoo houses a pair of Hackenfeller's Apes, the nearest primates to humans. The Professor is studying them, hoping to be...
https://bit.ly/49Qo7Kl
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Iris Murdoch
26 days ago
Come and join the fabulous panel discussing Iris's poetry at The London Library in March!
www.londonlibrary.co.uk/whats-on/342...
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Live in the Archive: Iris Murdoch and the poems in the
Live in the Archive is a collaboration between The London Library and Curtis Brown Heritage to celebrate some of the greatest literary stars in our combined history. This time, we’ll be turning o...
https://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/whats-on/342-live-in-the-archive-iris-murdoch-and-the-poems-in-the-attic-in-person?date=2026-03-04-19-00
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An unusual two-Brophy post! Brigid Brophy and John Brophy. Thank you
@casmilus.bsky.social
add a skeleton here at some point
28 days ago
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Traffic not too bad locally this morning.
30 days ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Andrew Copson
about 1 month ago
Been reading mid-20th century humanist campaigners for prison reform and just come across a description by Brigid Brophy saying in imprisoning people we are ‘burying them alive’. What a powerful image, even more true of conditions today! If you don’t already, do support
@thehowardleague.bsky.social
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Let Brigid Brophy tickle your brain and bend your mind. Read In Transit.
about 1 month ago
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Kate Levey
Jeremy Millar
about 1 month ago
Just a reminder that the deadline for the first round of applications for our (frankly excellent) MA Writing programme at the
@royalcollegeofart.bsky.social
closes next Monday, 19 January, so if you're thinking of applying please do so soon!
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Writing
Study MA Writing to develop your literary skills, work on live projects, and become part of a community of supportive writers.
https://www.rca.ac.uk/study/programme-finder/writing-ma/
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This is a marvellous Highsmith!
about 1 month ago
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Enjoying *some* of these.
about 1 month ago
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Nothing but these blooming in the garden at present:
about 1 month ago
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Now we're in 2026, it's *ONLY three years* until the centenary of Brigid Brophy's birth, so here's to 2029! Photo of Brigid Brophy (and Antinous) by J. Lewinski.
about 1 month ago
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Featuring, right, an early Brigid Brophy non-fiction volume, Black Ship to Hell, 1962. An interesting read, imo.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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@edisky.bsky.social
Thank you for reposting! Best wishes, K.
about 2 months ago
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Kate Levey
From Beyond Press
about 2 months ago
Brigid Brophy, The Finishing Touch (1963) David Lodge, Changing Places (1975) George V. Higgins, Kennedy for the Defense (1980) George R.R. Martin, Fevre Dream (1982) Jay B. Laws, The Unfinished (1992) Tahar Djaout, The Last Summer of Reason (1993)
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Kate Levey
From Beyond Press
about 2 months ago
Since I just started a chonky book that I won't finish before 2026, my 12 favorite reads of 2025 (in publication order): Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes (1926) Nathanael West, A Cool Million (1934) Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time (1951) Tewfik Al-Hakim, The Tree Climber (1962)
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Just your annual reminder that this photo accurately reflects what Brigid Brophy thought of Christmas.
about 2 months ago
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A regal wave to my followers from a sleigh as it was the nearest I could get to a throne!
about 2 months ago
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Himself taste-testing tinsel. Not a good idea.
2 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Jonathan Gibbs
2 months ago
If you haven't read Brigid Brophy, then do investigate! I doubt she'd thank me, but I think of her as nestling provocatively between Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch, with the sly, sometimes savage irony of the former, and the latter's bustling care for her characters. The Snow Ball is my favourite.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Brigid Brophy admired George Bernard Shaw, as one can see in Hackenfeller's Ape, first published in 1953.
2 months ago
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Brigid Brophy wrote 7 novels and these are the most recent editions:
2 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Ian Hunt
2 months ago
[5] Brilliant! I'll say it again. The story is based on Brophy's knowledge of Anthony Blunt, gained via her husband Michael Levey, art historian, who knew him. Published before the revelations about the spying. Happy to find
@brophylevey.bsky.social
here reminding world about Brigid Brophy.
#books
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@ianhunt.bsky.social
Here is the GMP edition from 1987 with this introduction
2 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Ian Hunt
2 months ago
[4] from Brigid Brophy, The Finishing Touch, 1963, a brilliant comedy set in a girls's school in the south of France. Writers with a sense of comedy like Brophy were ahead of many claiming 'experimental' territory in the 60s: the writing is technically and stylistically brilliant /
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'Tis the season... for fans of Brigid Brophy. Here's the first edition of The Snow Ball, 1964, with BB's inscription to her parents.
2 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Screaming Pectoriloquy
2 months ago
this 1969 book is either going to be an extremely prescient, groundbreaking work of fiction or an absolute disaster. no way of telling, really.
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Gloriously red as the light begins to subside!
4 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Sarah Parker
5 months ago
Michael Field in Context (Cambridge University Press) is out today! I'm so excited that this volume is finally out in the world. It features 35 chapters on so many different aspects of Michael Field's lives and work. Find out more/order for your library here:
www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Sarah Parker
4 months ago
My article on 'Brigid Brophy's Ethical Aestheticism: Form, Empathy, Reciprocity' is now out in the latest issue of Genre, in a special issue on Aestheticism Now! I'm looking forward to reading all the other articles. You can find the issue here:
read.dukeupress.edu/genre/issue/...
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Volume 58 Issue 2 | Genre | Duke University Press
https://read.dukeupress.edu/genre/issue/58/2
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Kate Levey
Joe McCartney
4 months ago
“He saw sitting on a branch, a medium sized brown feathered animal with the tail of a tabby cat.” ~ Pussy Owl (1976), Brigid Brophy.
#BookWormSat
#Jackanory
#BBC
[🎨Hilary Hayton]
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Brigid Brophy's *The Snow Ball* has just been published in German!
5 months ago
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Brigid Brophy on the back of Scarlett Thomas' The Sleepwalkers.
6 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Craig M. Ranapia
6 months ago
Flawless starter pack for an exploration of the fertile land of spinster-lit. I'd also add LOLLY WILLOWES by Sylvia Townsend Warner (along with every other word she wrote)
add a skeleton here at some point
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Windfall greengages masquerading as marzipan fruits or clay marbles.
6 months ago
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Rare Clifden Nonpareil? It turned up this p.m.
6 months ago
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It's a pretty-patterny sort of afternoon.
6 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Kim Stallwood
6 months ago
48 years ago today, I was attending the Animals’ Rights conference at Trinity College, Cambridge, organised by the RSPCA. My first opportunity to hear Richard Ryder, Brigid Brophy, Clive Hollands, John Bryant, Andrew Linzey, and many others speak out for animals.
kimstallwood.substack.com
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Kate Levey
Lurid Editions
6 months ago
Lurid borlotti beans and Brigid Brophy
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Humanists UK
6 months ago
'We are (of all the synonyms I most prefer to ‘humanist’) freethinkers. We are deprived of nothing. We have lost nothing… We are liberated into and given the freedom of the whole kingdom of the imagination.' The inimitable Brigid Brophy died
#onthisday
1995.
heritage.humanists.uk/brigid-brophy/
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Humanist Heritage: Brigid Brophy (1929-1995)
We are (of all the synonyms I most prefer to ‘humanist’) freethinkers. We are deprived of nothing. We have lost […]
https://heritage.humanists.uk/brigid-brophy/
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Kate Levey
Humanists UK
6 months ago
'Both my parents were humanists, they determined that my upbringing should be solidly rational. That bedrock gave me stability and my mother steered me from the kind of emotional jumble she had grown up with.' Kate Levey remembers her mother
#HumanistHeritage
heritage.humanists.uk/article/a-hu...
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Humanist Heritage: A Humanist Childhood
Kate Levey, daughter of writer, activist, vegan, and humanist Brigid Brophy, remembers an imaginative, affectionate, and colourful upbringing.
https://heritage.humanists.uk/article/a-humanist-childhood/
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Stephen Forecast
7 months ago
James Salter. I haven’t read much of him but he’s great. Brigid Brophy is a recent discovery for me but I’d defy A.I. to produce anything like The Snow Ball.
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Matt Keeley
7 months ago
I picked up the Brigid Brophy too. Recently read her book The Finishing Touch, which is a novel about a sapphic headmistress at a finishing school. Protagonist is modeled on a pre-outing* Anthony Blunt, who worked with Brophy's husband! *"Outing" in this sense meaning "as a Soviet spy."
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Kate Levey
JacquiWine
7 months ago
New on the blog this week, I've written about some of my favourite novels set in London. Featuring books by Rosamond Lehmann, Brigid Brophy, Margaret Drabble, Hisham Matar and more!
#BookSky
#London
#Books
#BookReview
💙📚
jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/l...
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London Novels – ten favourites from my shelves
Back in May, Faber and Faber reissued Alexander Baron’s brilliant novel The Lowlife, the entertaining, picaresque story of an amiable Jewish charmer trying to get by on his wits in seedy post-war L…
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/london-novels-ten-favourites-from-my-shelves/
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reposted by
Kate Levey
The TLS
7 months ago
From the Archive: A review of The Prince and the Wild Geese by Brigid Brophy, first published in the TLS of June 10, 1983
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Flower, with caterpillars
https://www.the-tls.com/regular-features/from-the-archive/from-the-archive-brigid-brophy-prince-and-wild-geese-review?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Bluesky#Echobox=1751993599
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Hoooooo! Brigid Brophy alert! Thank you
@thetls.bsky.social
add a skeleton here at some point
8 months ago
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reposted by
Kate Levey
Andy Miller
8 months ago
Can’t help thinking the TLS is missing a trick here.
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