Penelope Low was born in Cairo in 1933. She spent her early childhood in Egypt, before being sent to boarding school in England at the age of twelve. She read Modern History at St Anne's College, Oxford. She married the academic Jack Lively in 1957 and lived with him in Swansea and Oxford, among other places; he died in 1998, and Penelope Lively now lives in north London.

Lively's writing, like that of her peers Margaret Drabble, Nina Bawden, A. S. Byatt and others, is influenced strongly by an awareness of, and a response to, the sweeping social changes that have taken place in Britain in the course of the twentieth century.

Children's Fiction

Lively first achieved success with her children's fiction. Her first book, Astercote, was published in 1970. Since then, she has published many other books for children, achieving particular recognition with The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973) for which she received the Carnegie Medal and with A Stitch in Time (1976) which won her the Whitbread Award for best children's book.

Adult Fiction

Her first novel for adults, The Road to Lichfield, was published in 1977 and made the shortlist for the Booker Prize. She repeated this feat in 1984 with According to Mark, and eventually won the prize in 1987 with Moon Tiger, which tells the story of a woman's tempestuous life as she lies dying in a hospital bed. As is the case with all of Lively's fiction, the novel is marked by a close attention to the power of memory, the impact of the past upon the present, and the tensions between 'official' and personal histories. These are themes explored more explicitly in such non-fiction titles as A House Unlocked (2001) and Oleander, Jacaranda: A Childhood Perceived (1994), Lively's compelling memoir of her Egyptian childhood.

In addition to writing novels and short stories, Penelope Lively has also written radio and television scripts, presented a radio programme and contributed reviews and articles to various newspapers and journals.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded the OBE in 1989 and the CBE in 2001. She is also a Vice President of the Friends of the British Library.

Fiction for children

• Astercote (1970)
• The Whispering Knights (1971)
• The Driftway (1972)
• The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973, Carnegie Medal winner)
• The House in Norham Gardens (1974)
• Going Back (1975)
• Boy Without a Name (1975)
• A Stitch in Time (1976, Whitbread Award winner)
• The Stained Glass Window (1976)
• Fanny's Sister (1976)
• The Voyage of QV66 (1978)
• Fanny and the Monsters (1978)
• Fanny and the Battle of Potter's Piece (1980)
• The Revenge of Samuel Stokes (1981)
• Uninvited Ghosts and other stories (1984)
• Dragon Trouble (1984)
• Debbie and the Little Devil (1987)
• A House Inside Out (1987)
• Princess by Mistake (1993)
• Judy and the Martian (1993)
• The Cat, the Crow and the Banyan Tree (1994)
• Good Night, Sleep Tight (1995)
• Two Bears and Joe (1995)
• Staying with Grandpa (1995)
• A Martian Comes to Stay (1995)
• Lost Dog (1996)
• One, Two, Three...Jump! (1998)
• The House in Norham Gardens (1974)
• "In Search of a Homeland; The Story of The Aeneid" (2001)

Fiction for adults

• The Road to Lichfield (1977, shortlisted for the Booker Prize)
• Nothing Missing but the Samovar, and other stories (1978, Southern Arts Literature Prize winner)
• Treasures of Time (1979, Arts Council National Book Award winner)
• Judgement Day (1980)
• Next to Nature, Art (1982)
• Perfect Happiness (1983)
• Corruption, and other stories (1984)
• According to Mark (1984, shortlisted for the Booker Prize)
• Pack of Cards, Stories 1978-86 (1986)
• Moon Tiger (1987, Booker Prize winner, shortlisted for the Whitbread Award)
• Passing On (1989)
• City of the Mind (1991)
• Cleopatra's Sister (1993)
• Heat Wave (1996)
• Spiderweb (1998)
• The Photograph (2003)
• Making it up (2005)
• Consequences (2007)
• Family Album (2009)

Non-fiction

• The Presence of the Past: An introduction to landscape history (1976)
• Oleander, Jacaranda: a Childhood Perceived (1994)
• A House Unlocked (2001)

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