The Ladies - Softcover

Grumbach, Doris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393310922 ISBN 13: 9780393310924

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993

Synopsis

“Grumbach is acutely sensitive to the quiet hum of everyday living and the small acquired habits that bond lovers over long periods. It is especially touching to watch the women age as the pages turn, affecting a kind of time-lapse realism that doesn’t diminish the Ladies’ passion or love for each other.” ―Diane Salvatore, Ms.

The Ladies is a touching, imaginative retelling of the story of two of history’s most interesting characters: Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, well-born Irish women who defied all conventions of their eighteenth-century Irish homeland and eloped to the small hamlet of Llangollen in Wales, where they lived as a married couple. There, removed from the eyes of the world, they hoped to live out their quiet lives. But the world outside gradually came to claim the Ladies―first out of curiosity, but eventually on the basis of profound respect, and even love. Visited by such luminaries as Edmund Burke, William Wordsworth, Walter Scott, and Horace Walpole, among many others, Eleanor and Sarah became known throughout Britain and to history as the “Ladies of Llangollen.”

About this title

From the Inside Flap

told in delicate brushstrokes of a relationship in which two hearts came almost literally to beat as one."

Newsday

In the late 18th century, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby defied all conventions of their Irish homeland and eloped to Wales as a married couple.

There, over many years, they forged a romantic paradise from a simple country cottage and a few acres of land. They called it "Plas Newydd" the New Place. Their home was filled with light and love, with the pursuit of enlightenment, with exquisite expressions of their devotion. Their land contained gardens and quiet paths for walking, fruit trees and flowers and bees, sheep and chickens and cows.

Eleanor and Sarah lived in almost utter solitude. When the outside world eventually discovered them, many people journeyed to Wales out of curiosity to meet the renowned "Ladies of Llangollen." All of them came away with profound respect for their way of life, their love for

From the Back Cover

"A tale told in delicate brushstrokes of a relationship in which two hearts came almost literally to beat as one."

Newsday

"Understated and elegant, this slim book is a true classic on that rarest of relationships, companions of the heart."

San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0393310922
• ISBN 13: 9780393310924
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224