"I am a profound pessimist both about life and about human relations and about politics and ecology. Humans are inadequate and stupid creatures who sooner or later make a mess, and those who are trying to do good do a lot more damage than those who are muddling along."
English novelist, critic, and scholar whose fiction combined intellectual depth with formal experimentation. She received broad acclaim for works including Possession, which won the Booker Prize. Her career also included influential literary criticism and essays.