William Trevor

His name was also mentioned in relation to the Nobel Prize in Literature. Trevor won the 2008 International Nonino Prize in Italy. In 2014, he was bestowed with the title of Saoi within Aosdána. He resided in England from 1954 until his death in 2016, at the age of 88.

William Trevor studied at University of Dublin and St Columba's College, Dublin. The recorded working language is English. Works named in the authority record are Two Lives, Felicia's Journey, The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer. Distinctions recorded are Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Irish PEN Award, Hawthornden Prize and International Nonino Prize.

• Name — William Trevor • Pen Name — William Trevor • Birth Name — William Trevor Cox • Born — 24 May 1928 • Birthplace — Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland • Died — 20 November 2016 • Place of death — Crediton, Devon, England • Occupation — Novelist, short story writer • Language — English • Citizenship — Irish • Education — Trinity College, Dublin • Notable Works — The Old Boys The Boarding House Mrs. Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel The Children of Dynmouth Fools of Fortune Two Lives Felicia's Journey The Story of Lucy Gault Love and Summer The Dressmaker's Child • Awards — Hawthornden Prize for Literature Whitbread Prize Jacob's Award Companion of Literature David Cohen Prize Irish PEN Award Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature • Illustration — Autograph of William Trevor

He was born as William Trevor Cox in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, to a middle-class, Anglo-Irish Protestant (Church of Ireland) family. He moved several times to other provincial locations, including Skibbereen, Tipperary, Youghal and Enniscorthy, as a result of his father's work as a bank official. He was educated at a succession of schools including St Columba's College, Dublin (where he was taught by Oisín Kelly) and at Trinity College Dublin, from which he received a degree in history. Trevor worked as a sculptor under the name Trevor Cox after he graduated from Trinity College, supplementing his income by teaching. He married Jane Ryan in 1952 and emigrated to England, working as a teacher, a sculptor and then as a copywriter for an advertising agency. During this time he and his wife had their first son. In 1952 he became an art teacher at Bilton Grange, a prep school near Rugby. Trevor was commissioned to carve reliefs for several churches, including All Saints, Braunston, Northamptonshire. In 1956 he moved to Somerset to work as a sculptor and carried out commissions for churches. He stopped wood carving in 1960. His first novel, A Standard of Behaviour, was published in 1958 (by Hutchinson of London), but received little critical success. He later disowned this work, and, according to his obituary in The Irish Times, "refused to have it republished". It was, in fact, republished in 1982 and in 1989. In 1964, at the age of 36, Trevor was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for The Old Boys. This success encouraged Trevor to become a full-time writer. In 1971, he and his family moved from London to Devon in South West England, first to Dunkeswell, then in 1980 to Shobrooke, where he lived until his death. Despite having spent most of his life in England, he considered himself to be "Irish in every vein". William Trevor died peacefully in his sleep on 20 November 2016. He was 88 years old.

He wrote several collections of short stories that were well-received. His short stories often follow a Chekhovian pattern. The characters in Trevor's work are typically marginalized members of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married. Those who cannot accept the reality of their lives create their own alternative worlds into which they retreat. A number of the stories use Gothic elements to explore the nature of evil and its connection to madness. Trevor acknowledged the influence of James Joyce on his short-story writing, and "the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal" can be detected in his work, but the overall impression is not of gloominess, since, particularly in his early work, the author's wry humour offers the reader a tragicomic version of the world. He adapted much of his work for stage, television and radio. In 1990, Fools of Fortune was made into a film directed by Pat O'Connor, followed by a 1999 film adaptation of Felicia's Journey, which was directed by Atom Egoyan. Trevor set his stories in both England and Ireland; they range from black comedies to tales based on Irish history and politics. A common theme is the tension between Protestant (usually Church of Ireland) landowners and Catholic tenants. His early books are peopled by eccentrics who speak in a pedantically formal manner and engage in hilariously comic activities that are recounted by a detached narrative voice. Instead of one central figure, the novels feature several protagonists of equal importance, drawn together by an institutional setting, which acts as a convergence point for their individual stories. The later novels are thematically and technically more complex. The operation of grace in the world is explored, and several narrative voices are used to view the same events from different angles. Unreliable narrators and different perspectives reflect the fragmentation and uncertainty of modern life. Trevor also explored the decaying institution of the "Big House" in his novels Fools of Fortune and The Story of Lucy Gault.

• 1965: Hawthornden Prize for The Old Boys • 1970: Mrs. Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize • 1975: Royal Society of Literature for Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories • 1976: Whitbread Award for The Children of Dynmouth • Allied Irish Banks Prize for fiction • Heinemann Award • Shortlisted for the Booker Prize • 1980: Giles Cooper Award for Beyond the Pale • 1982: Giles Cooper Award for Autumn Sunshine • 1982: Jacob's Award for TV adaptation of The Ballroom of Romance • 1983: Whitbread Prize for Fools of Fortune • 1991: Reading Turgenev was shortlisted for the Booker Prize • 1994: Whitbread Prize Best Novel for Felicia's Journey • 1999: David Cohen Prize by the Arts Council England in recognition of his work. • 2001: Irish Literature Prize • 2002: Irish PEN Award • 2002: The Story of Lucy Gault was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Book Award • 2003: Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award at the Listowel Writers' Week • 2008: Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature

• A Standard of Behaviour (Hutchinson, 1958) • The Old Boys (The Bodley Head, 1964) • The Boarding House (The Bodley Head, 1965) • The Love Department (The Bodley Head, 1966) • Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel (The Bodley Head, 1969) • Miss Gomez and the Brethren (The Bodley Head, 1971) • Elizabeth Alone (The Bodley Head, 1973) • The Children of Dynmouth (The Bodley Head, 1976) • Other People's Worlds (The Bodley Head, 1980) • Fools of Fortune (The Bodley Head, 1983) • Nights at the Alexandra (Hutchinson, 1987) • The Silence in the Garden (The Bodley Head, 1988) • Two Lives (the two novellas Reading Turgenev and My House in Umbria) (Viking Press, 1991) • Felicia's Journey (Viking, 1994) • Death in Summer (Viking, 1998) • The Story of Lucy Gault (Viking, 2002) • Love and Summer (Viking, 2009) • The Dressmaker's Child (Penguin Books)

• Title — |Year — |First published in — Reprinted/collected in — Notes • data-sort-value="third party"|The third party — 1986 • data-sort-value="women"|The women — 2013

• Out of the Unknown: "Walk's End" (1966) • Play for Today: O Fat White Woman (1971, adaptation from short story) • The Old Boys (Davis-Poynter, 1971) • A Night with Mrs da Tanka (Samuel French, 1972) • Going Home (Samuel French, 1972) • Marriages (Samuel French, 1973) • The Ballroom of Romance (Pat O’Connor, 1982) • Going Home (Samuel French, 1972)

• A Writer's Ireland: Landscape in Literature (Thames & Hudson, 1984) • Excursions in the Real World: memoirs (Hutchinson, 1993)

• The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories (Oxford University Press, 1989)

• The Day We Got Drunk on Cake and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1967) • The Ballroom of Romance and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1972) • The Last Lunch of the Season (Covent Garden Press, 1973) • Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1975) • Old School Ties (Lemon Tree Press, 1976) • Lovers of their Time (The Bodley Head, 1978) • The Distant Past (Poolbeg Press, 1979) • Beyond the Pale (The Bodley Head, 1981) • The Stories of William Trevor (Penguin, 1983) • The News from Ireland and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1986) • Family Sins and Other Stories (The Bodley Head, 1989) • Outside Ireland: Selected Stories (Viking, 1992) • The Collected Stories (Viking, 1992; Penguin, 1993, 2003) • After Rain (Viking, 1996) • Cocktails at Doney's (Bloomsbury Classics, 1996) • The Hill Bachelors (2000) • A Bit On the Side (Viking, 2004) • Cheating at Canasta (Viking, 2007) • Bodily Secrets (Penguin Great Loves, 2007; new selection of stories from earlier collections) • The Collected Stories (Viking, 2009). • Selected Stories (Viking, 2010), listed as "the second volume of his collected stories". • Last Stories (Viking, 2018)