The Chinese Garden

by Rosemary Manning, Patricia Juliana Smith (Afterword)

Overview

At the Bampford School for Girls, conditions are Spartan, discipline is fierce, and love between students is the ultimate crime. Here, 16-year-old Rachel becomes trapped in a tangle of passions she does not fully understand, caught between a formidable headmistress and a passionate and defiant classmate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558612150
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	06/01/1999
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Rosemary Manning (1911-1988) was the author of six novels, many of them set in her native West Country of England, and two volumes of autobiography.

Editorial Reviews

"Manning has very considerable descriptive powers and can paint the landscape within as suggestively as the one without. . . . This is a very intelligent, sensitive, and compelling book."
— Anthony Burgess

"Manning is a sensitive writer. She has not only a fine ear for prose but a fine eye for character. She has succeeded in creating . . . the world of the adolescent [searching for] an 'inner order behind a chaotic and unlovely existence.'"
— The New York Times Book Review

"Rosemary Manning's unjustly forgotten novel is a deft depiction of innocence and the forces of hypocrisy, paranoia, and self-hatred that betray innocence. It deserves to rank among the very best of the early- and mid-twentieth-century portrayals of girls' school love such as Olivia and Mädchen in Uniform. Thank you, Feminist Press, for making this gem of a story available once again!"
— Lillian Faderman, author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers

"Rosemary Manning writes with subtlety, intelligence, control, and great respect for words. . . . The Chinese Garden offers something of the misty, undefined evil that pervades The Turn of the Screw ."
— The New York Herald Tribune

From the Publisher

Manning's 1962 novel features a burgeoning love between two young girls at a boarding school. Since this subject is far less taboo in most places than when it was first published, this book might find a far wider audience today. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

Hot as it is, The Chinese Garden is most provocative, and strangely timely, as a sensuous discussion of ethics.
—The Village Voice

Stacey D'Erasmo