By the time of her death in 1992, Angela Carter had come to be regarded
as one of the most successful and original British authors of the
twentieth-century, and her writing has subsequently become the focus of
a burgeoning body of criticism. This book disentangles the cult of
Angela Carter as 'the fairy godmother of magical realism' from her own
claims to be a materialist and a 'demythologiser' by placing her within
the social, political and theoretical context within which she wrote.
Drawing on Carter's own autobiographical articles as well as her novels
and short stories, this study examines her engagement with topical
issues such as national (particularly English) identity, class, politics
and feminism, assessing the relationship between her life, her times and
her art.