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Penelope Lively has written many prize-winning novels for adults and children. They include- The Road To Lichfield, According To Mark, Moon Tiger (which won the 1987 Booker Prize), Heat Wave, Spiderweb, The Photograph, Making It Up, Consequences and Family Album. Penelope Lively lives in London.
A House Unlocked is rather different from Lively's usual fare as a distinguished novelist. Golsoncott is a country house which her family has inhabited since 1923. As Lively looks through the strange, old-fashioned catalogue of possessions found within the house, she reflects on the social and political history which they invoke. She explains: 'This book has tried to use the furnishings of a house as a mnemonic system'. The house, and its belongings, such as the gong stand and the bon-bon dish all belong to a different age, an age which Lively herself remembers, and from which she recalls fascinating stories. The history of Mary Britnieva, a strong Russian woman whose husband was killed by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution is movingly recounted, as is that of Otto Kane, a Jewish boy escaping from the Third Reich. These mini-biographies all come together to form the history of this unconventional and yet very British country house. In this thought-provoking book Lively shows how much society has changed over the three-quarters-of-a-century during which her family has inhabited Golsoncott. (Kirkus UK)
