Book description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HERMIONE LEE
The previously uncollected occasional prose of a great English writer -
full of wit, feeling and illumination.
Penelope Fitzgerald was a prolific letter writer. She avoided the phone
if she could, never even contemplated the possibility of going online.
Her warmth, humour and supreme storytelling abilities found their best
forum here. Surprising, wonderfully funny, definitive, this is a major
collection of Penelope Fitzgerald's reviews, essays and autobiographical writings.
This collection includes pieces on contemporary novelists Giles Foden,
Anne Enright, Carol Shields, Rose Tremain, Roddy Doyle; on classic
writers Muriel Spark, A. E. Housman, Rose Macaulay, M. R. James, Stevie
Smith, Dorothy L. Sayers; on remembering her grandfather E. H. Shepard;
on her love of Devon and Spain and William Morris: on writers in their
old age; and witty and poignant recollections of her schooldays, her
life on a Thames barge, her childhood in Hampstead and the ghost who
lived next door but one.
This is a fantastically funny book - as much of an entertainment as the
Kingsley Amis letters. 'Of all the novelists in English of the last
quarter-century, Penelope Fitzgerald has the most unarguable claim on
greatness.' Philip Hensher
'This generous selection of essays, reviews, introductions and other
occasional writings proves yet again that stylistically, intellectually
and morally Fitzgerald couldn't put a foot wrong if she'd tried. Hers is
an impeccable and unique voice not just from another century but another
world.' Michael Dibdin, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph
'Remarkable. It is the range of her scholarship that impresses.' Doris
Lessing, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph
'An intelligent writer, superbly and unfailingly so. Wise and funny,
with a dry wit allied to a great emotional sympathy.' Sunday Times
Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the most distinctive voices in British
literature. The prizewinning author of nine novels, three biographies,
one collection of short stories, she died in 2000.
