Georgy Girl Author Margaret Forster Has Died at the Age of 77

Posted on February 8, 2016

British author Margaret Forster has died at the age of 77 due to spine and brain cancer. Ms. Forster is best known for her novel Georgy Girl which was made into a feature film in 1966 starring Lynn Redgrave, Charlotte Rampling and Alan Bates. She was also the author of Diary of an Ordinary Woman.

She is survived by her husband, journalist and author Hunter Davies, and their three children. Ms. Forster had a double mastectomy for breast cancer forty years ago, and recovered. But the cancer returned in 2007. According to her husband, she could not sit for long periods of time due to the pain, which made going to restaurants or movies impossible. But she kept on writing.

Ms. Forster published more than 25 novels, as well as biographies of William Makepeace Thackeray and Daphne du Maurier. Her most recent book was My Life In Houses, a tour of the places she had lived. Published in 2014, the book tours Hampstead, London, Oxford, Portugam, and the British Lake District.

Mr. Davies told the Associated Press that his wife was "the cleverest woman I ever met." He said she "was emotionally clever, in that she could always understand people and predict their actions and their feelings and their motives, which I can never do.... she was just the most marvelous woman. She was a remarkable woman in every way."

Ms. Forster 's last novel, How to Measure a Cow will be published in March.