Description
Book SynopsisAn unforgettable picture of love, loss and the keeping up of appearances. Published as part of a beautifully designed series to mark the 40th anniversary of the Virago Modern Classics.
Trade ReviewEvery one of her books is a treat and this is my favourite, because of its wonderful cast of characters, and because of the deftness with which Taylor's narrative moves between them ... A wonderful writer * Sarah Waters *
Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Bowen - soul-sisters all * Anne Tyler *
A wonderful novelist * Jilly Cooper *
An eye as sharply all-seeing as her prose-style is elegant - even the humdrum becomes astonishing * Daily Telegraph *
She's a favourite of
this writer. I've read this novel, set in a seaside town in the 1940s, five times and I'm itching to read it again. There's a mother from hell in it who makes me wince and chuckle -- Jacqueline Wilson
There is a deceptive smoothness in her tone, or tone of voice, as in that of Evelyn Waugh; not a far-fetched comparison, for in the work of both writers the funny and the appalling lie side by side in close amity -- Kingsley Amis
It is time that justice was done to Elizabeth Taylor... All her writings could be described as coming into the category of comedy. Comedy is the best vehicle for truths that are too fierce to be borne -- Anita Brookner
Her best novels-
At Mrs. Lippincote's (1945),
A View of the Harbour (1947),
A Game of Hide and Seek (1951)-are, in spite of their prim titles, funny, savage and full of loneliness and suppressed emotion. For her characters, as for their author, propriety is a survival mechanism, a way of keeping the show on the road -- Rachel Cooke * Guardian *
