British author Isabel Colegate, who "had her greatest success with The Shooting Party, published as a novel in 1980 and adapted into a film four years later," died March 12, the Guardian reported. She was 91. Like most of her 13 novels, The Shooting Party was set among the country-living English upper classes in the first half of the 20th century, which was "familiar home territory to Colegate, and although her writing never suggested she was inclined to tear down that privilege, she nevertheless sought to unravel the uneasy secrets of the grand English country house, often to a backdrop of war, politics and financial disarray."
In The Shooting Party, she "skillfully assembled a broad swathe of characters representing both the aristocrats of England in 1914 and those who served them," the Guardian noted. Colegate co-wrote the screenplay for the film, which featured a cast that included Dorothy Tutin, John Gielgud and James Mason. The book was also adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 2010, with Olivia Colman. The Shooting Party won a WH Smith literary award in 1981.
In 1952, Colegate went to work with the then literary agent Anthony Blond, a flamboyant figure who had just set up shop in London’s New Bond Street, while at the same time writing her first novel, The Blackmailer. When Blond became a publisher in 1958, it was one of the first books released by his new imprint. Her next two novels, A Man of Power (1960) and The Great Occasion (1962), were also published by Blond.
Then came Statues in a Garden (1964), "which to some extent foreshadowed The Shooting Party. Set during the summer of 1914 among the English aristocracy, Colegate exposed how sexual and financial shenanigans among the privileged and powerful led to disaster," the Guardian wrote.
Orlando King (1969), Orlando at the Brazen Threshold (1971) and Agatha (1973) quickly followed. Her eighth novel was News from the City of the Sun (1979). She also published a short story collection, A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory (1985). Her last novel was Winter Journey (1995).
In 2002 her one nonfiction work and final book, A Pelican in the Wilderness, was published. In it, Colegate "delves into a wide-ranging cast of characters... in this case hermits and recluses of many vintages, from Saint Simeon Stylites to J.D. Salinger. She traveled widely for her research and used her observant eye to explore how history, religion and the natural world feature in the lives of her chosen figures."