The Bookshop
by Fitzgerald, Penelope
- Used
- first
- Condition
- Green boards titled in gilt. Fine in near fine dust jacket (slightest fading to spine panel of dust jacket). Uncommon
- Seller
-
New York, New York, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Fitzgerald's second novel. A finalist for the Booker prize.
Synopsis
In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence's warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wants one.
Reviews
A recent review of a new book about Penelope Fitzgerald in "The New Yorker" prompted me to search the shelves of my own used bookshop for a copy of one of her novels. Fortuitously, "The Bookshop" was the one Fitzgerald novel in stock.
The author herself sums up her works by saying that they are "...too sad really to be comedies, but not important enough to be tragedies." And this novel is no exception. Florence Green, widowed and childless, decides that her little Suffolk town needs a bookshop. Florence is one of the most endearing characters I have encountered in my recent reading, sweet and trusting, yet forceful when she needs to be. She encounters a formidable enemy in Mrs. Violet Gamart but also a powerful supporter in the reclusive but influential Mr. Brundish. The author's description of the landscape of the Suffolk coast in which her town of Hardcastle is located had me scrambling to my computer to Google up some images. While the scenes were lovely, Fitzgerald's description of the disappearing coastline and the creeping damp, combined with the portraits of the pettiness of the townspeople, does not have me scrambling for a ticket to Suffolk. Although both the characters and the landscape seem to be colluding to defeat her, Florence's unflagging sweet nature and her pluck and determination win the admiration of this reader. And the novel's terse, perceptive prose has won a new fan for Penelope Fitzgerald.
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Details
- Bookseller
- James Cummins Bookseller (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 365626
- Title
- The Bookshop
- Author
- Fitzgerald, Penelope
- Format/Binding
- 1 vols. 8vo
- Book Condition
- Used - Green boards titled in gilt. Fine in near fine dust jacket (slightest fading to spine panel of dust jacket). Uncommon
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition
- Publisher
- Duckworth
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1978
- Keywords
- British | Women
- Bookseller catalogs
- Literature; Social Thought;
Terms of Sale
James Cummins Bookseller
All items, as usual, are guaranteed as described and are returnable within 30 days if not as described. Within the United States, all books are shipped UPS unless otherwise requested (please provide a street address). Overseas orders should specify shipping preference. All postage is extra. New clients are requested to send remittance with your orders. Libraries may apply for deferred billing. All New York and New Jersey residents must add the appropriate sales tax. We accept American Express, Master Card, and Visa. All items are subject to prior sale; prices are subject to change.
About the Seller
James Cummins Bookseller
About James Cummins Bookseller
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...