Margaret Drabble

In the early 1900s, Bessie Bawtry, a small child with big notions, lives in a South Yorkshire mining town in England. Precocious and refined in a land of little ambition and much mining grime, Bessie waits for the day she can escape the bleak, coarse existence her ancestors had seldom questioned. Nearly a century later Bessie's granddaughter, Faro Gaulden, is listening to a lecture on genetic inheritance. She has returned to the depressed little town in which Bessie grew up and wonders at the families who never left. 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 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 brilliant novel, full of irony, sadness, and humor.

In a novel set in England in the 1960s, an independent young woman is faced with a difficult choice when she discovers that she is pregnant after her one and only sexual experience. Reprint. 15,000 first prinitng.

A spellbinding portrait of a troubled family and wry dissection of middle-class sentiment around legacy and social ambition

A sharp and merciless dark comedy about marriage, motherhood and the pull of ambition

A luminous story of love, purpose and regret, and captures the essence of what it means to be a woman at a crossroads

‘Thames & Hudson’s new, affordable, covetable ‘Pocket Perspectives’: beautifully illustrated essays by canonical writers’ Financial Times A highly acclaimed exploration of the way in which the landscape has both influenced and been represented in British Romantic literature. Margaret Drabble on the Romantics presents an image of Britain as seen through the eyes of some of its most celebrated authors. Many of the Romantics, as well as their successors, are closely associated with particular landscapes – the Wordsworths with the Lake District, Walter Scott with the Scottish Borders, the Brontë sisters with West Yorkshire. Margaret Drabble deepens our understanding of this connection, unpacking the Romantics' fascination with all varieties of rural landscape, from roaring seas to tranquil villages, while also exploring their writing's subtler associations. Herself a star in the literary firmament, Drabble illuminates how this love of place fashioned some of the Romantics' greatest works. She considers the resonances of myth and legend, art and earlier literature that the Romantics found in places such as North Wales and Cornwall and investigates how their writing has, in turn, shaped our visual attitudes, taste in landscape and relation to nature.

The princess is taking her over, bodily and mentally. Dr Babs Halliwell is no longer herself. A young girl is plucked from obscurity to marry the Crown Prince of Korea. In her diaries, she chronicles the intrigues of courtly life and her own extraordinary existence. Two hundred years later, the Red Queen's ghost haunts Dr Babs Halliwell, an Oxford academic obsessed with her memoirs and possessed by the many parallels with her own complicated past. But why and how does she keep the Red Queen's story alive? The inimitable Margaret Drabble offers a rich and atmospheric historical novel, where the dead wander among the living and ask what it means to be remembered.

Ailsa and Humphrey met as children by a grey, northern sea in post-war Britain. She, freckled and furious; he, quietly studious; both fascinated by the other. Years later, their lives collide as adults and burst into an intense yet brief love affair. Now, after thirty years apart and at the close of the 20th century, their lives are converging once again as they hurtle towards each other by plane and train - their motivations, regrets and decisions laid bare. With the gloriously astute eye that Margaret Drabble is celebrated for, The Sea Lady is an account of first and last love; of the lapping of time at our ankles, gradually eroding and shaping our lives.

January 1987. Alix Bowen has moved away from London to Yorkshire. There, she regularly visits a mass-murderer in a high-security prison. But has her natural curiosity in his motives and character crept into obsession? Meanwhile, Alix's life continues to cross and uncross with her old friends Liz and Esther, now all in their fifties. As the years pass, they increasingly question the brutally prosperous and atrocity-hungry society they live in, and their complicity in it, as they navigate life in 1980s Britain. The second in a trilogy following on from The Radiant Way and finishing with The Gates of Ivory, A Natural Curiosity sees Margaret Drabble return with her brilliant and dark wit in this bold, generous and incisive portrait of the time.

1979. Three old Cambridge friends are brought together at a party to celebrate New Year's Eve and the end of a decade. Esther, Liz and Alix first met in Cambridge in the early Fifties, a time when their futures held glittering promise. But with the dawn of the Thatcher era, everything changed. Now middle-aged, how will these confident women cope with the personal and professional challenges they will come to face?'A sublime example of Drabble's mastery in unravelling the intricacies of intimate relationships' - The Times

In her witty, masterful debut novel, Margaret Drabble conjures a gripping story of sibling rivalry. Louise, beautiful and sophisticated, marries wealthy novelist Stephen Fairfax. Sarah, recently graduated from Oxford, is thrown back into family matters. Louise's life becomes one of parties, gossip columns and glamour. Sarah, now in London, begins to discover a newfound freedom, only glimpsing her sister's fashionable life. But as rumours of infidelity in Louise's marriage surface, Sarah finds that her sister, beneath her cool exterior, may not be the woman she thought she was.'Margaret Drabble's early novels were intimate and sprightly chronicles of the small dissatisfactions and small triumphs of young women like herself' - Hilary Mantel

SOMETHING HAS FALLEN AWAY. We have lost a part of ourselves, our history, what we once were. That something, when we encounter it again, look it straight in the eyes, disgusts us, makes us retch. This is the horror of the abject. Following the success of Comma’s award-winning New Uncanny anthology, The New Abject invites leading authors to respond to two parallel theories of the abject – Julia Kristeva’s theory of the psychoanalytic, intimate abject, and Georges Bataille’s societal equivalent – with visceral stories of modern unease. As we become ever-more isolated by social media bubbles, or the demands for social distancing, our moral gag-reflex is increasingly sensitised, and our ability to tolerate difference, or ‘the other’, atrophies. Like all good horror writing, these stories remind us that exposure to what unsettles us, even in small doses, is always better than pretending it doesn’t exist. After all, we can never be wholly free of that which belongs to us.

Known for both its industrial roots and arboreal abundance, Sheffield has always been a city of two halves. From elegant parks and gardens to brutalist high-rise estates and the hinterland nightclubs of 'Centertainment', it is a city caught between the forges of the past and the melting pot of the present. Bringing together new short stories from some of the city's most celebrated writers, The Book of Sheffield traces the contours of this complex landscape from both sides of the economic dividing line. From the aspirations of young creatives, ultimately driven to leave, to the more immediate demands of refugees, scrap metal collectors, and student radicals, these stories offer ten different look-out points from which to gaze down on the ever-changing face of the 'Steel City'.

Writing From the Hampstead Ladies' Pond. A collection of writing on the much-loved Ladies' Pond by the women who swims there. Big name contributors include Margaret Drabble, Esther Freud, and Leanne Shapton and newer voices such as Sophie Mackintosh. Tucked away along a shadt path towards the north east edge of hampstead Heath is a sign: Women Only - Men Not Allowed Beyond This Point. This is the Kenwood Ladies Bathing Pond, the only wild swimming spot in the UK just for women.

»Historien är mästerligt berättad, vackert sammanfogad och klädd i en utmärkt svensk språkdräkt.« Betyg 5 av 5 | Michael Nyhaga, BTJ»En av den engelska litteraturens skarpaste pennor.« | Jenny Aschenbrenner, Svenska Dagbladet»Mänskligt. Mästerligt. Av en av Storbritanniens mest bländande författare. En hyllningssång till mänsklighetens tragiska predikament och till jorden, vårt dödliga hus.« | The New York Times»En meditation över ålderdomen, med ekon av Simone de Beauvoir och Samuel Beckett, sjudande av apokalyptiska motiv.« | The GuardianFran må vara till åren kommen, men tänker inte ge sig utan en fajt. Hon njuter av vin, gillar att köra bil i hög fart och bor kvar i huset som alla tjatar om är hälsovådligt. Hennes ex Claude, en före detta läkare som skriver ut läkemedel till sig själv och är besatt av Maria Callas, hennes gamla bästa vän Jo, den flamboyante sonen Christopher och den allvarsamma dottern Poppet - alla hennes nära och kära söker lyckan, var och en på sitt sätt. Men vad kommer att bli deras hälsning till världen? Vem kommer att vinka, vem kommer att drunkna, när slutet är nära? Margaret Drabbles senaste roman Den mörka floden stiger är en bok som tar sig an de stora frågorna: Vad skapar ett gott liv? Och en god död? Ömsom lycklig, djupt inkännande, ömsom mörkt sardonisk och gripande. En triumfatorisk, virtuos roman om kärleken, döden, soldränkta öar, poesi, Maria Callas, tidvatten, oväntade slut och pånyttfödelser. Den mörka floden stiger [2017] hyllas som ett mästerverk i den engelskspråkiga världen. Nu utkommer den på svenska, i översättning av Alva Dahl. MARGARET DRABBLE är en engelsk författare och dramatiker, född i Sheffield 1939. Kritikerhyllad redan med debutromanen A Summer Bird-Cage [1963]. Sedan decennier räknas hon till Storbritanniens viktigaste författare.

'Den forgyldte baby' er historien om Anna med det lysende glade smil, hendes mor Jess og det samfund, der omslutter dem. Da Anna er to år, finder hendes mor imidlertid ud af, at barnet ikke er som andre børn ... Men historien begynder ved den afrikanske sø, hvor de ubekymrede unger med de sammenvoksede tæer - 'hummerklo-børnene' - leger. Her indledes eventyret, og herfra skulle det være fortsat for Jess, den purunge studerende, men sådan går det ikke, da Professoren kommer ind i hendes liv. "Resultatet er en glimrende roman, der bekræfter Drabbles status som en meget stor forfatter." Daily Mail

»Margaret Drabbles mest fullödiga och trollbindande roman.« JOYCE CAROL OATES »Bräddfull av intelligens.« NEW YORK TIMES »Riken av guld är en hyllning till människan som del av naturen.« JOHN UPDIKE, THE NEW YORKER Frances Wingate är en av världens mest lysande arkeologer. Tack vare henne hittades ruinerna efter ett antikt handelscentrum i Saharaöknen. Men det finns ett förflutet hon inte lyckas bringa till liv. Sitt eget. Hon ångrar inte att hon övergav sitt äktenskap, men hon ångrar att hon gjorde slut med Karel Schmidt, historiker vid ett litet engelskt universitet, som hon inser är hennes livs kärlek. Hon kontaktar honom men får inget svar. När Karel väl försöker nå Frances måste han resa till Afrika för att hitta henne. Riken av guld [The Realms of Gold, 1975] av Margaret Drabble är en modern engelsk klassiker. I översättning av Sonja Bergvall och med ett nyskrivet förord av kritikern Therese Eriksson. MARGARET DRABBLE är en engelsk författare och dramatiker, född i Sheffield 1939. Kritikerhyllad redan med debutromanen A Summer Bird-Cage [1963]. Sedan decennier räknas hon till Storbritanniens viktigaste författare.

»Med exaktheten hos en Jane Austen och giftigheten hos en Evelyn Waugh, med subtil humor och elegant psykologi, naglar Margaret Drabble fast egenkärleken hos sina karaktärer och det samhälle de företräder.« | LOS ANGELES TIMES» Margaret Drabble har lyckats åstadkomma ett panoramaperspektiv över det moderna livet.« | THE CHICAGO TRIBUNEUnga smarta litteraturstudenten Rosamund Stacey blir gravid under sin hittills enda kärleksnatt, med den sexuellt förvirrade George. Mot alla odds bestämmer hon sig för att behålla barnet och samtidigt inte berätta för George att han är pappan. Det är London och 1960-tal; det är långt ifrån socialt accepterat att vara ogift mor. Rosamund tvingas lära sig en hel del: om moderskap, om sig själv och samhället runt omkring henne. Margaret Drabbles roman Kvarnstenen [The Millstone] från 1965 räknas som en av de feministiska klassikerna och dess tankar om moderskap, klass och självständighet utmanar än i dag. I översättning av Else Lundgren och med ett nyskrivet förord av kritikern Annina Rabe. MARGARET DRABBLE är en engelsk författare och dramatiker, född i Sheffield 1939. Kritikerhyllad redan med debutromanen A Summer Bird-Cage [1963]. Sedan decennier räknas hon till Storbritanniens viktigaste författare.