“Do not be taken in by time,” she once said, “and imagine that history-and especially intellectual history-is linear.” She was high-minded, self-sufficient, European. And I don’t mean anything like “she was an old-fashioned Tory/liberal/socialist.” She was outside of her age in many ways.

How can I put it? She dealt in truths not from previous generations but from previous eras, truths she kept alive but which others had abandoned. But if she was, it was not in the normal way, that of embodying a previous generation whose truths had now proved wan and withered. You might think Elizabeth Finch equally, if not more, old-fashioned. You might think me old-fashioned (but my case is not relevant). Many people know one another without knowing them at all. Except that nowadays, in the digital landscape, friends and followers have come to mean different, watered-down things. But she was not known to those who did not know her. She is acknowledged in some books of medieval history and female thought. Several of her students subsequently made their names. As opposed to the scores of tenured dolts and bores who would have done better to keep silent. To some an independent scholar whose books are unavailable might seem a laughable figure. She had published two books: Explosive Women, about female anarchists in London between 18 and Our Necessary Myths, about nationalism, religion and family. She had a West London flat in which I never set foot she appeared to live frugally I assume she arranged her teaching to allow her time for private, independent scholarship. I imagined she had family money, or an inheritance. I never knew Elizabeth Finch’s financial position. But money allowed them to travel and research what and where they needed, with no pressure to publish, colleagues to out-perform or heads of department to satisfy. Mostly, of course, they had money some were eccentric, a few certifiably mad. But before knowledge became officially housed in academe, there used to be men and women of the highest intelligence who privately pursued their own interests. That may sound like a euphemism, even a truism.

If asked to characterise her professionally, I would say that she was an independent scholar. He lives in London.Įlizabeth Finch was not in any way a public figure. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Prix Médicis and Prix Femina in France, and the Jerusalem Prize.

Barnes is the author of twenty-four previous books, for which he has received the Man Booker Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. The following is from Julian Barnes's Elizabeth Finch.

Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes