LS - Lorna Sage Archive

LS

Collection

Lorna Sage Archive

1960-2002

10 series
77 boxes Mixed

UEA. School of English and American Studies

Sage, Lorna
Carter, Angela
Lessing, Doris May, 1919-2013

English literature -- Study and teaching
English literature -- History and criticism
Women authors

Sage, LornaLorna Sage (1943-2001) was born in Hanmer, Wales and graduated with a first in English from Durham University. She was Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia from 1994 and was twice appointed Dean of the School of English and American Studies (EAS), 1985-1988 and 1993-1996. LS was a literary journalist and critic and wrote extensively for the London Review of Books, the Observer and the Times Literary Supplement. However she became best known for the publication of her autobiographical memoir 'Bad Blood' (2000) which won the Whitbread Biographical Award in 2001.

[A digital exhibition: 'Lorna Sage: Bad Blood - An Exhibition" commemorating twenty years since the publication of her memoir was curated by her daughter, Sharon Tolaini-Sage in 2021. It includes previously unseen archival items from Tolaini-Sage's private collection, such as photographs, letters and extracts from the personal diary of Lorna Sage's grandfather, which Sage drew on heavily in her memoir. [Visit the exhibition at this link (copy and paste address into browser window): https://lornasagearchives.omeka.net/]

Two-thirds of this collection was transferred in May 2009 from the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at UEA where it had been stored under the guidance of Val Striker, Senior Administrator, since Lorna’s (LS) death.

Val’s impending retirement had prompted LS’s daughter, Sharon Tolaini-Sage to find a permanent home for the collection. At the same time, Sharon gifted the collection she herself had been keeping, this included LS’s published review writing and other miscellaneous items.

The papers cover LS’s writings, the bulk of which centres on her review writing; 'The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English', edited by LS in 1999; and 'Good As Her Word', a selection of LS’s writings published posthumously.

Copious ms notes, criticism and coursework layouts can be found in the Teaching and Coursework series (LS/TC). Correspondence with students and supervisees (LS/EX) shows LS’s role as lecturer and Dean of EAS.

Also included are papers concerning an earlier proposal to set up an archive (LS/LSA); general correspondence; and papers relating to Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Christina Stead, Christine Brooke-Rose and other writers.