Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, Hermione Lee, c. 2013.

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, Hermione Lee, c. 2013. 

 Started publishing bookks at age 60; became famous at age 80. 

Essentially unknown. 

Hermione Lee was curious and that's why she wrote the book.

Moved around England, but her home base was Hamstead.

A Georgian childhood.

The story revolves around two highly religious families, the Hicks and the Knoxes and, then, after they married, the Fitzgeralds.

She had no time for religious sects; they were cut from the same cloth, but faith was necessary for life.

Penelope: 1916 - 2000.

Confusing family diagram. If I have it correct:

Penelope's mother was Christina Frances Hicks (1885 - 1935), daughter and third child of Bishop Edward Lee Hicks, Bishop of Lincoln.

Penelope's father was Edmund George Valpy Knox. He (her dad) was born 1881, went to war (WWI) 1916 -- age almost 35 or thereabouts. Writer / cartoonist for Punch. Seriously wounded in the war. Known as "Evoe"; had three brothers; these were Penelope's three uncles whom she adored. All within a few years of each other, but all about the same age. Christina, born 1885, was four years younger than "Evoe," born in 1881. 

Page 25, second chapter, Katherine Mansfeld mentioned for first and only time in the book. Mansfeld lived nearby when Penelope was two years old, but, of course, never remembered here.

I will have to go back and re-read chapter 1 -- the very beginnings. 

So, back to the beginning.

So, Christina, age 27, daughter of a Bishop (Lincoln) marries a bishop's son (Bishop Knox, Manchester), age 31. Match made in heaven (Edmunc George Valpy Knox, "Evoe.")

Christina back at her father's place, Bishop of Lincoln. Her husband of four years, Eddie Knox, son of Edmund Knox and Ellen French, had just gone off to war. She had a four-year-old son Edmund Rawle and pregnant with Penelope who would be born in December, 1916.

Her paternal grandfather was Bishop Knox of Manchester; her  maternal grandfather, Bishop Hicks of Lincoln (hopefully I have that correct).

The Knoxes (husband Knox with three brothers, two sisters) dominated Penelope Fitzgerald's life.

Penelope wrote The Knox Brothers -- her father and three uncles.

Page 9 - 10: faith, reason, games, systems, emotion with regard to the four boys.

Hermione Lee says Penelope's childhood was rough. Many different faiths intersected.

Aha, page 11 and 12 explains the story of two wives of Bishop Knox. First wife dies of influenza and the bishop remarries. 

In 1903 Edmund Knox becomes Bishop Knox, and is Bishop for 20 years.

Then a digression to another family model, the first wife's father, Bishop of Lahore, India; daughter was Ellen Penelope French, first wife of Bishop Knox. This first wife bore all six Knox kids -- the four brothers and two sisters.

Bishop Lahore came home on leave: to Whitby, Lindisfarne, or St David's. Is this St David's, Wales, the smallest city in England. If so, these three towns were far apart.

To the end of the chapter, the Knoxes.

Chapter Two: Learning To Read

Back from war, Eddie and Christina Knox; to Hampstead, home base for Penelope from then on.  Penelope named for her paternal grandmother who was first wife to Bishop Knox.

 Hampstead, about six miles north-northwest of London, a neighborhood / suburb of London.