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The Peppered Moth
Margaret Drabble
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9780151005215 Hardcover
0151005214
$33.00
384pages
Available - Print On Demand
Trim Size:
6 x 9
Copyright Year:
Territory:
US, O
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Reading Guide
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Synopsis |
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Bessie Bawtry is a young girl living in the early 1900s in Breaseborough, a mining town in South Yorkshire, England. Unusually gifted, she longs to escape a life burdened by unquestioned tradition. She studies patiently, dreaming of the day when she will take the entrance exam for Cambridge and be able to leave her narrow world. A generation later, Bessie's daughter Chrissie feels a similar impulse to expand her horizons, which she in turn passes on to her own daughter.
Nearly a century later, Bessie's granddaughter, Faro Gaulden, finds herself listening to a lecture on genetics and biological determinism. She has returned to Breaseborough and wonders at the families who remained in the humble little town where Bessie grew up. Confronted with what would have been her life had her grandmother stayed, she finds herself faced with difficult questions. Is she really so different from the plain South Yorkshire locals? As she soon learns, the past has a way of reasserting itself-not unlike the peppered moth that was once thought to be nearing extinction but is now enjoying a sudden unexplained resurgence.
The Peppered Moth is a brilliantly conceived novel, full of irony, sadness, and humor.
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Praise |
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PRAISE FOR THE WITCH OF EXMOOR
"A novelist . . . who will have done for late twentieth-century London what Dickens did for Victorian London."-The New York Times
"Drabble skewers the egotism of her characters and of the society they inhabit with subtle humor and elegant psychological analysis . . . proves herself a master of the art."-Los Angeles Times
"Part mystery, part fairy tale . . . with a wicked, dead-on wit."-People
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PRAISE FOR THE RADIANT WAY
"The sprawling, dazzling pluralism of her novel is meant to illustrate the glimmering interconnectedness of all humanity."-The New Yorker
"This novel marks another step in one of the most interesting careers in contemporary letters. . . . It not only engrosses; it works."-Time
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PRAISE FOR A NATURAL CURIOSITY
"-A masterly tapestry of characters and events . . . Drabble's fiction has achieved a panoramic vision of contemporary life."-Chicago Tribune
"It is Drabble's story that beguiles us. Her main characters, successful people in relatively full possession of their lives, can still be surprised, and frequently are."
-The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
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Biography |
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Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield, England, in 1939 and read English at Cambridge University. Her novels include The Gates of Ivory, The Ice Age, The Realms of Gold, A Summer Bird Cage, and The Waterfall. She is also the editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. She has three children and is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.
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General Subjects |
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Academic Disciplines & Course Studies |
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English Language & Literature- British Literature
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Harcourt Books
An imprint ofHarcourt Trade Publishers
A
Harcourt Education Company
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