The Red Queen: Margaret Drabble’s (Auto)Biographical Pastiche

Abstract

Margaret Drabble's 2004 novel The Red Queen transgresses the generic borderlines between autobiography, biography and fiction. Drabble rewrites the published memoires of an eighteenth-century Korean Crown Princess with the help of two volumes of her biography, where she is known as Lady Hong or Hyegyong. Alongside the Princess's first-person narrative voice, Drabble has created her ghost voice addressing twenty-first century readers and comparing the time past with the time present. The novelist balances her avowed right to interpret and fictionalise with an undoubted respect for the original memoires. The article considers Drabble's mix of autobiography, biography and fictional narrative to examine the way she has contrived the The Red Queen as a playful but serious and moving autobiographical pastiche.