Collections#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Never Breathe a Word |
2010 |
Buy |
Non-Fiction#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Last of the Duchess |
2012 |
Buy |
Standalone Novels#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| For All That I Found There |
1974 |
Buy |
| The Fate of Mary Rose |
1974 |
Buy |
| The Stepdaughter |
1976 |
Buy |
| Great Granny Webster |
1977 |
Buy |
| Darling, You Shouldn’t Have Gone to So Much Trouble |
1980 |
Buy |
| Good night sweet ladies |
1983 |
Buy |
| Corrigan |
1984 |
Buy |
| On the Perimeter |
1984 |
Buy |
| In the Pink |
1987 |
Buy |
Caroline Blackwood (1931-1996) was an Anglo-Irish writer, journalist, and socialite whose fiction is marked by dark humor and a sharp eye for human cruelty. Born Lady Caroline Maureen Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, she moved in literary and artistic circles throughout her life, married first to the painter Lucian Freud and later to the American poet Robert Lowell. Her writing reflects a worldview shaped by privilege, dysfunction, and an unflinching interest in people behaving badly.
Her novels and stories tend to be short, controlled, and unsettling. Great Granny Webster (1977), her most celebrated work, packs a devastating family portrait into barely a hundred pages. Other works like The Stepdaughter, Corrigan, and the story collection Good Night Sweet Ladies share the same dry, Gothic sensibility. She also wrote non-fiction, including The Last of the Duchess, an unfinished investigation into the reclusive final years of the Duchess of Windsor that was published posthumously in 2012.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Caroline Blackwood written?
Caroline Blackwood has written eleven books across three series.
What was Caroline Blackwood's first book?
Caroline Blackwood’s first book is For All That I Found There, published in 1974.
What is Caroline Blackwood best known for?
Caroline Blackwood is best known for her 1977 novel Great Granny Webster, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The short novel is a dark, wickedly funny portrait of a repressive Anglo-Irish family told through the eyes of a young woman visiting her formidable grandmother. Blackwood was also known for her marriages to painter Lucian Freud and poet Robert Lowell.