Stockley, Philippa

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Home—London, England. Office—Evening Standard, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry St., Kensington, London W8 5TT, England. Agent—c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White, 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN, England.

CAREER: Writer and painter. Evening Standard, London, England, deputy editor.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

The Edge of Pleasure, Abacus (London, England), 2002.

A Factory of Cunning, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Philippa Stockley is a painter and a deputy editor for London's Evening Standard newspaper, as well as a novelist. Stockley's debut novel, The Edge of Pleasure, focuses on Gilver, a successful young English artist who lives a decadent life and is famous for his over-the-top parties and good looks as much as for his paintings. Though his lavish lifestyle gradually causes a decrease in productivity, he fails to curtail his spending and finds himself, at nearly forty, nearly broke. When Gilver meets Alice, he takes advantage of her good will as well as her feelings for him, but inevitably Alice's strength of character wins out. A contributor for Kirkus Reviews called the book a "brazenly romantic debut" and concluded that "while Stockley can be catty … she is seldom glib and never dull. Repellent characters [are] redeemed by saucy, vivid writing."

Stockley's sophomore effort, A Factory of Cunning, is an historical novel that picks up where French novelist Choderlos de Laclos's Les liasions dangereuse left off. It tells the story of how the marquise is forced to leave France after causing the deaths of two people and the ruin of a young girl. The noblewoman takes on the name of Mrs. Fox and flees to London. As de Laclos did with his own work, Stockley tells the entire story through letters and excerpts from diaries. She follows "Mrs. Fox" during her time in London, revealing that she has learned nothing from her tragic experiences in France as she continues to toy with people's lives simply to entertain herself. In a review for the Spectator, Andrew Barrow called Stockley's novel "a squelchingly well-researched period piece with sex, lust, over-ripeness and what one character calls the 'odour' of the scholar permeating every paragraph," also describing it as "a remarkable tour de force, jam-packed with poetry, verbal fireworks, vitality and charm." Cynthia Johnson, writing for Library Journal, praised the novel by calling it "a compellingly complex tale of seduction, betrayal, and manipulation," and a contributor for Publishers Weekly stated that it is "narrated with wit and sexually provocative detail." In an article for the Independent Online, D.J. Taylor wrote that. "If Stockley's accomplished second novel has a flaw it is the thought that, amid lashings of cruelty and moral turpitude, nothing very serious is at stake." Jessica Mann, in an online review for the London Telegraph, stated that "the scene is convincingly set; the action keeps the audience's attention; and in the end the outcome of Fox and the earl's devious machinations is about as credible, or incredible, as a traditional melodrama's final corpse-strewn stage." London Observer online contributor Laura Baggaley remarked that "Stockley spins a romantic yarn of travel, murder, intrigue and adventure while resolutely rejecting the sentiment of romance. This is a cracking tale of depravity, our avaricious heroine fiercely committed to life and survival—too awful to like but too fascinating to hate."

Stockley told CA: "Writing and painting are things I have always done, interchangeably. The act or art of describing—for so they both are—is gripping, consuming, exciting. It would be too simple to say that one feeds into the other, but it IS true that one restores the other. When I can write no longer, I can paint, and vice versa. I consider this the greatest good fortune."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2003, review of The Edge of Pleasure, p. 1293; January 1, 2005, review of A Factory of Cunning, p. 20.

Library Journal, December 1, 2004, Barbara Hoffert, review of A Factory of Cunning, p. 88; March 1, 2005, Cynthia Johnson, review of A Factory of Cunning, p. 81.

Publishers Weekly, February 7, 2005, review of A Factory of Cunning, p. 38.

Spectator, March 12, 2005, Andrew Barrow, "Lady into Urban Fox," p. 48.

ONLINE

Bookpage, http://www.bookpage.com/ (July 12, 2005), "Philippa Stockley."

Curled up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (July 12, 2005), "Philippa Stockley."

Independent Online, http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/ (July 12, 2005), D.J. Taylor, review of A Factory of Cunning.

Observer Online, http://books.guardian.co.uk/ (July 12, 2005), Laura Baggaly, review of A Factory of Cunning.

Telegraph.co.uk, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (July 12, 2005), Jessica Mann, review of A Factory of Cunning.