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This biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written with
reference to Browning correspondence only recently available,
argues that the poet was a strong and determined woman largely
responsible for her own incarceration in Wimpole Street. The author
traces her life from her early childhood and adolescence and
explores her marriage. She draws a picture of early Victorian
family life and aims to show that Elizabeth was a considerable and
dedicated poet, self-willed, witty and courageous. Forster has also
edited the companion volume "Selected Poems" of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, and is author of several other biographies.
'Compelling...taut and suspenseful' Guardian Tara Fraser has a
secret. Desperate to escape herself and her past, she changes her
name, packs up her London home and moves to a town in the North of
England where she knows no one. But one of her new neighbours,
Nancy, is intrigued by her. And as hard as Tara tries to distance
herself, she starts to drop her guard. Then a letter arrives. An
old friend wants to meet up. Struggling to keep her old life at
bay, Tara soon discovers the dangers of fighting the past.
Sir Gerald du Maurier was the most celebrated actor-manager of his
day, knighted for his services to the theatre in 1922. Published
within six months of her father's death, this frank biography was
considered shocking by many of his admirers - but it was a huge
success, winning Daphne du Maurier critical acclaim and launching
her career. In Gerald: A Portrait, Daphne du Maurier captures the
spirit and charm of the charismatic actor who played the original
Captain Hook, amusingly recalling his eccentricities and his sense
of humour, and sensitively portraying the darker side of his nature
and his bouts of depression.
Lost, found, stolen, strayed, sold, fought over... This engrossing,
beautifully crafted novel follows the fictional adventures, over a
hundred years, of an early 20th-century painting and the women
whose lives it touches. It opens with bold, passionate Gwen,
struggling to be an artist, leaving for Paris where she becomes
Rodin's lover and paints a small, intimate picture of a quiet
corner of her attic room. Then there's Charlotte, a dreamy
intellectual Edwardian girl, and Stella, Lucasta, Ailsa and finally
young Gillian, who share an unspoken desire to have for themselves
a tranquil golden place like that in the painting. Quintessential
Forster, this is a novel about women's lives, about what it means
and what it costs to be both a woman and an artist, and an unusual,
compelling look at a beautiful painting and its imagined afterlife.
Margaret Forster presents the 'edited' diary of a woman, born in
1901, whose life spans the twentieth century. On the eve of the
Great War, Millicent King begins to keep her journal and vividly
records the dramas of everyday life in a family touched by war,
tragedy, and money troubles. From bohemian London to Rome in the
1920s her story moves on to social work and the build-up to another
war, in which she drives ambulances through the bombed streets of
London. Here is twentieth-century woman in close-up coping with the
tragedies and upheavals of women's lives from WWI to Greenham
Common and beyond. A triumph of resolution and evocation, this is a
beautifully observed story of an ordinary woman's life - a
narrative where every word rings true.
"Fascinating . . . The reader is treated to a revealing account of
the passionate romance between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert
Browning through the eyes of an intimate observer."
-Booklist
Young and timid but full of sturdy good sense and awakening
sophistication, Lily Wilson arrives in London in 1844, becoming a
lady's maid to the fragile, housebound Elizabeth Barrett. Lily is
quickly drawn to her mistress's gaiety and sharp intelligence, the
power of her poetry, and her deep emotional need. It is a strange
intimacy that will last sixteen years.
It is Lily who smuggles Miss Barrett out of the gloomy Wimpole
Street house, witnesses her secret wedding to Robert Browning in an
empty church, and flees with them to threadbare lodgings and the
heat, light, and colors of Italy. As housekeeper, nursemaid,
companion, and confidante, Lily is with Elizabeth in every
crisis-birth, bereavement, travel, literary triumph. As her
devotion turns almost to obsession, Lily forgets her own fleeting
loneliness. But when Lily's own affairs take a dramatic turn, she
comes to expect the loyalty from Elizabeth that she herself has
always given.
A biography of the novelist Daphne du Maurier which looks behind the relaxed and charming facade to expose the workings of a complex and emotional character. The book won the Macallan/Writers' Guild 1993 Non-fiction Award.
'I was born on 25th May, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in
Orton Road, a house on the outer edges of Raffles, a council
estate. I was a lucky girl.' So begins Margaret Forster's journey
through the houses she's lived in, from that sparkling new council
house, to her beloved London home of today. This is not a book
about bricks and mortar though. This is a book about what houses
are to us, the effect they have on the way we live our lives and
the changing nature of our homes: from blacking grates and outside
privies; to cities dominated by bedsits and lodgings; to the houses
of today converted back into single dwellings. Finally, it is a
gently insistent, personal inquiry into the meaning of home.
London 1844, and a shy young woman has arrived to take up a new
position in the grandeur of No. 50, Wimpole Street. Subtly and
compellingly, Lady's Maid gives voice to Elizabeth Wilson's untold
story, her complex relationship with her mistress, Elizabeth
Barrett, and her dramatic role in the most famous elopement in
history.
Catherine's mother died when Catherine was just a baby girl,
leaving nothing but her perfect reputation to live up to. Or so she
thought. But then Catherine finds a box addressed to her, filled
with objects seemingly without meaning - three feathers, an exotic
seashell, a painting, a mirror, two prints, an address book, a map,
a hat, a rucksack and a necklace. And while she's busy playing
detective trying to find out who her mother was, she finds out more
about herself than she ever really wanted to know. Secrets are
discovered, truths uncovered, and Catherine realises that maybe
there was something more to her mother, something that her familiy
has kept from her. How long a shadow can a dead woman cast?
Georgy is young, gregarious and fun - she is also large,
self-confessedly ugly and desperate for love. Georgy bears her fate
bravely as she alternates between playing the fool and humbling
herself before Meredith, her pretty, callous flatmate, although
when James, middle-aged socialite and self-imposed 'Uncle', asks
Georgy to become his mistress, she is tempted to accept. Then
Meredith announces that she is pregnant and Jos, the expectant
father, decides he is in love with Georgy...
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Shadow Baby (Paperback)
Margaret Forster
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R313
R255
Discovery Miles 2 550
Save R58 (19%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Born in Carlisle in 1887, brought up in a children's home and by
reluctant relatives, Evie, with her wild hair and unassuming ways,
seems a quiet, undemanding child. Shona, born almost seventy years
later, is headstrong and striking. She grows up in comfort and
security in Scotland, the only child of doting parents. But there
are, as she discovers, unanswered questions about her past. The two
girls have only one thing in common: both were abandoned as babies
by their mothers. Different times, different circumstances, but
these two girls grow up sharing the same obsession. Each sets out
to stalk and then haunt her natural mother. Both mothers dread
disclosure; both daughters seek emotional compensation and,
ultimately, revenge.
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