A View Of The Harbour: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844089649 ISBN 13: 9781844089642

Publisher: Virago Press Ltd

Synopsis

She let herself out of the large, untidy house and into her own beautiful, hyacinth-scented one. She sat down in the bay-window of her bedroom and combed her hair before the mirror. She took it all down and built it up again, but there was no one to see what she had done. * In the faded coastal village of Newby, everyone looks out for - and in on - each other, and beneath the deceptively sleepy exterior, passions run high. Beautiful divorcee Tory is painfully involved with her neighbour, Robert, while his wife Beth, Tory's best friend, is consumed by the worlds she creates in her novels, oblivious to the relationship developing next door. Their daughter Prudence is aware, however, and is appalled by the treachery she observes. Mrs Bracey, an invalid whose grasp on life is slipping, forever peers from her window, constantly prodding her daughters for news of the outside world. And Lily Wilson, a lonely young widow, is frightened of her own home. Into their lives steps Bertram, a retired naval officer with the unfortunate capacity to inflict lasting damage while trying to do good. * 'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' - Elizabeth Bowen 'Always intelligent, often subversive and never dull, Elizabeth Taylor is the thinking person's dangerous housewife. Her sophisticated prose combines elegance, icy wit and freshness in a stimulating cocktail' - Valerie Martin 'A magnificent and underrated mid-20th-century writer, the missing link between Jane Austen and John Updike' - David Baddiel, Independent

About this title

From the Publisher:

The war over, retired naval officer Bertram comes to a quiet fishing village intending to paint. Curious, and with that strangely unfortunate capacity to inflict lasting damage while trying instead to do good, he begins delving into every corner of the picturesque backwater. There’s a lot going on beneath the quiet surface: pretty divorcee Tory is painfully involved with the local doctor—who just happens to be married to her best friend, Beth. And Beth continues to churn out successful romantic novels, oblivious to the relationship developing next door. Meanwhile, Lily pins vain hopes on Bertram’s careless kindness. Written with wit and compassion, A View of the Harbour is an enchanting, devastatingly well–observed novel. Elizabeth Taylor, who died in 1975, is the author of such highly praised novels as At Mrs Lippincote’s, Angel, and Blaming.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Taylor (1912-75) is increasingly being recognised as one of the best writers of the twentieth century. She wrote her first book, At Mrs Lippincote's, during the war, and this was followed by eleven further novels and a children's book, Mossy Trotter. Her short stories appeared in Vogue, the New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar. Rosamond Lehmann considered her writing 'sophisticated, sensitive and brilliantly amusing, with a kind of stripped, piercing feminine wit', and Kingsley Amis regarded her as 'one of the best English novelists born in this century'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Virago Press Ltd
• ISBN 10: 1844089649
• ISBN 13: 9781844089642
• Binding: Hardcover