Maureen Duffy FKC

King’s College London is saddened to hear of the death of King’s alumna, Maureen Duffy FKC (English, 1956), author of more than 30 published works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays.

Maureen always had a passion for writing, winning her first poetry competition when she was 17. Whilst at King’s, she finished Pearson, her first full-length play.

She taught in junior schools to put herself through university and continued teaching after graduating, in both Naples and London, before transitioning into writing full-time. In 1961, she was commissioned to write the screenplay Josie for Granada TV, using the £450 advance to buy a houseboat.

After this, she wrote widely for stage, screen and radio. She produced non-fiction, nine poetry collections and multiple novels – including Capital, which features a fictionalised version of King’s under the name ‘Queen’s College London’.

Maureen was one of the first British women to publicly come out as gay and was an advocate for LGBT rights for more than 50 years. Her novel The Microcosm – an openly lesbian bestseller – was groundbreaking in 1966 when it was released, and she regularly contributed to the lesbian feminist journal Sappho throughout the 1970s.

She was the author of Men and Beasts: an Animal Rights Handbook and Gor Saga, which both reflected her interest in animal rights. The latter was turned into a miniseries called First Born, starring Charles Dance.

Maureen’s work received widespread recognition. She received the Benson Medal (2004) and the RSL Pioneer Prize (2025) from the Royal Society of Literature for her writing.

She held roles as Fellow and Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature. She was also Honorary President of the British Copyright Council and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.

Maureen maintained her connection with King’s throughout her life. In 2002, she became a Fellow of the College. She attended conferences hosted by the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies (CLAMS) and met with students from the Department of English to talk about her work as recently as 2023. Two of Maureen’s plays from the King’s archives have been taught to students in the Department of English.

She donated her archive to be held in King’s Collections.

She also worked closely with Professor Lawrence Warner, Professor of Medieval English in the Department of English. They met at a CLAMS event, where Maureen shared she had written a play based on the medieval poem Piers Plowman, stored in her archive at King’s.

To bring Maureen’s work to life for new audiences, Professor Warner arranged and produced the world premiere of a new score set to Maureen’s poem ‘Missa Humana’ in 2024. This orchestral performance with music by Dolly Collins – a key figure in the English folk scene – involved Professor Warner tracking down the score so that this great poem could be performed.

Professor Warner also delivered an inaugural lecture based on Maureen’s love of folk dancing and learning sword dancing at school, which fed into her interest in the medieval poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. She had a strong interest in the folk scene, even once singing in a folk club in Dublin, cashing in on her surname.

Details for this obituary were taken from King’s website.