[9] She worked closely with many Deutsch authors, including Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Mordecai Richler, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rhys, Gitta Sereny, Brian Moore, V. S. Naipaul, Molly Keane, Stevie Smith, Jack Kerouac, Charles Gidley Wheeler, Margaret Atwood, and David Gurr.
[14] Athill was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to literature.
'"[20] The failure of her relationship with Irvine (referred to as Paul in Instead of a Letter),[11] her "great love", "blighted" many years: "My affairs after that, I kept them trivial if I possibly could.
"[20] Irvine went to war in Egypt, and eventually stopped replying to Athill's letters, then two years later requested an end to their engagement.
[3] She called herself a "sucker for oppressed foreigners", an inclination she characterized as a "funny kink" in her maternal instinct: "I never particularly wanted children, but it came out in liking lame ducks.
[20] She moved into a flat in a north London residence for the "active elderly" at the end of 2009,[21] saying about this decision: "Almost at once on arrival at the home I knew that it was going to suit me.
[22] Even during her old age, she reemphasized that she had no regrets about not having her own children, saying: "I dearly love certain young people of my acquaintance and am happy to have them in my life, but am I sorry that they are not my descendants?
[24][25][26] Her nephew and heir, the art historian Philip Athill,[27] is managing director of the dealership and gallery, Abbott and Holder.