Miss Peabody's Inheritance

by Elizabeth Jolley

Overview

A dazzling comic novel—a delightful romp and a blistering satire. “Reading Jolley makes one feel alive.”—Lemony Snicket.

Miss Peabody, a lonely spinster in London, writes a fan letter to Diana Hopewell, an Australian novelist. In reply, Hopewell sends installments of her novel-in-progress, the zany adventures of a trio of gently lesbian ladies, a headmistress and two companions, touring Europe with a hapless student. With each mail delivery, Miss Peabody's involvement with the novelist and her characters intensifies until fantasy and reality poignantly merge. "Wonderful . . . gives great pleasure" (New York Times Book Review).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892553709
Publisher:	Persea Books
Publication date:	07/01/2012
Series:	Karen and Michael Braziller Books
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	164
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Jolley (1923-2007) is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers, with a formidable international reputation, and during the 1980s and 1990s was widely acclaimed with a wide readership in the U. S. Born in England in 1923, she was brought up in a strict, German-speaking household and attended a Quaker boarding school. She became a nurse, married, and with three children moved to Western Australia in 1959. Although she wrote all her life, it was not until she was in her fifties that her books started to receive the recognition they deserved. Her work won every major award in Australia, and was several times selected as a New York Times Notable Book. Excerpts from her novels (including Cabin Fever, Book 2 in the Trilogy) were published in The New Yorker. Her novels include The Sugar Mother, Foxybaby, Miss Peabody's Inheritance, and Mr. Scobie's Riddle. Elizabeth Jolley died in 2007.

Editorial Reviews

Two novels are contained here: one is about middle-aged Londoner Miss Peabody who works and cares for her ailing mother. The other is a novel-in-progress sent irregularly to Miss Peabody from a writer in Australia to whom she once wrote a fan letter. Soon the novel excerpts are more real and wonderful than Miss Peabody's own life, and when her mother dies, she moves to Australia, where a poignant surprise awaits. PW found the story ``delicately and ironically told, informed by a warm sympathy that tinges even the funniest scenes with rue.'' November

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly