Margaret Drabble

In the year 2011, she received the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for a “Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature”. She has been married twice. Once to actor Clive Swift from 1960 until 1975, with whom she had three kids with.

The best place to start is The Radiant Way series, the earliest of Margaret Drabble's multi-book series: it opens with The Radiant Way (1987) and runs to 3 books across 1987–1991, ending with The Gates of Ivory (1991). Margaret Drabble's other series stand alone, so they can be read in any order.

Margaret Drabble has 75 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1963 and 2025. 37 of them belong to 3 named series — the largest being the Forward Books of Poetry series with 26 books — and 38 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.

Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Margaret Drabble's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are The Radiant Way (1987–1991, 3 books), Forward Books of Poetry (1992–2018, 26 books) and Pocket Perspectives 6 (2024–2025, 8 books).

This guide splits Margaret Drabble's 75 books into 3 named series and 38 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Forward Books of Poetry (26 books, 1992–2018); Pocket Perspectives 6 (8 books, 2024–2025); The Radiant Way (3 books, 1987–1991).