If I love AS Byatt and Iris Murdoch..

[LadyPoncenbyFroglett]

Any other, similar women writers might I enjoy?

Looking for writers with a similar prose heavy academic style. Angela Carter a tad too 'magical-realism' for my tastes but I did love the non fiction work of Marina Warner. I am also fond of Sylvia Townshend Warner (Lolly Willowes is my heroine!) and Katherine Mansfield, although would prefer something from the AS Byatt era, I think.

I love KM, recently saw an excellent old drama about her life, starring Jeremy Brett and Vanessa Redgrave - sadly only a fuzzy copy on youtube remains.

I did begin To the Lighthouse a long time ago, maybe I ought to dip back in?

Oh oh oh
I know you weren't sure about the magical side of Angela Carter but if you want a book to REALLY get your teeth into...
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

I started to research a book about KM's relationship with Ida Baker. Now I'm approaching retirement I might pick it up again.

Tessa Hadley
Dorothy Whipple (Persephone Classics have reissued them)
Amanda Craig

And the v best of all - Rosamond Lehmann

My favourite of all time. I cried when I completed that book. I even enjoyed the tv series, which was a surprise, as it is so rare that our most cherished fictions do well on screen.

Thank you @blackpear!

Absolutely this 😁

I think you would love Elizabeth Strout and Annie Proulx.

Oh yes, Elizabeth Strout is wonderful.

Ah I've found my literary tribe! Following this for inspiration but also to recommend Barbara Trapido, Sara Maitland, Esther Freud as well as to second Margaret Drabble. I do love Angela Carter myself and think she is kind of in this grouping. Also Bernice Rubens (some surrealism) is amazing but seems kind of forgotten these days, my library has no copies of any of her books shockingly!

Writers who aren't but who I love are Milan Kundera and Banana Yoshimoto.

Beryl Bainbridge.

Margaret Atwood, and Carol Shields.

Much more modern but Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Sarah Waters.

Excellent, I am glad to know I am not alone!
Have you heard of the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington? (partner of max ernst) She was also a wonderful writer. If you enjoy Angela Carter's more surreal works then definitely check her out. Not sure about availability but often on ebay - can strongly recommend 'the seventh horse and other stories'!

And thank you all for sharing more suggestions, I will keep this thread in my favourites.

Elizabeth Bowen?

Elizabeth Jane Howard

It's very interesting to read Byatt's early book, The Game, and Drabble's first novel, A Summer Bird Cage ... (I knew someone who'd been up at Cambridge with their younger brother and told me these were novels in an uncomfortable conversation with each other).

Drabble's later novels are far more "heavy" than her early ones. They're all brilliant.

I'd add in Jane Gardam - very overlooked as she was (weirdly) categorised as a children's author for some time.

Woolf's very early novel, Night & Day is less aesthetically experimental, ditto The Voyage Out.

Working backwards, the novels of Mrs Humphrey Ward might be of interest - Helbeck of Bannisdale (a bit tricky to find) is an intellectual re-working of Wuthering HEights ; also, Robert Ellsmere is really interesting on the religious/atheist debates of the late 19th C.

Muriel Spark; Katherine Mansfield.

I shouldn’t be on this thread, because I’ve mislaid my reading mojo, but the only one of my suggestions that hasn’t already been suggested is Barbara Pym (although perhaps too light?)

Ah, you beat me to it. Yes, I second this.

I also add my vote for Virginia Woolf and Anita Brookner. Woolf would be the obvious choice. She is arguably the female English-language novelist of the 20th-century.

Brookner is a superb writer. Not academic/philosophical exactly, but a first class stylist. In fact, I'd put her up there with the finest prose stylists I've ever read. Really beautiful.

Iris Murdoch
Jean Rhys
Ivy Compton Burnett
Anthony Powell

I've just finished Family & Friends by Anita Brookner and was going to start an "If I like Anita Brookner, what else will I like?" thread, but I think I've found my answer here.

Also came to say Anne Tyler but found some great ideas!