LOW FLAT RATE $9.90 AUST-WIDE DELIVERY

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

A House Unlocked

Penelope Lively Harry Brockway

$47.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Penguin Books Ltd
02 August 2010
Beautifully repackaged reissue of Penelope Lively's classic memoir

The only child of divorced parents, Penelope Lively was often sent to stay at her grandparents' country house Golsoncott. Years later, as the house was sold out of the family, she began to piece together the lives of those she knew fifty years before.

In a needlework sampler, she sees her grandmother and the wartime children that she sheltered under her roof in 1940. Potted meat jars remind her of the ritual of doing the flowers for church. The smell of the harness room brings her Aunt Rachel - avant-garde artist, fervent horserider - vividly back to life.

In A House Unlocked, Penelope Lively delves into the domestic past of her former home, and tells of her own youth and the contrasts between life today and the way they lived then.
By:  
Illustrated by:   Harry Brockway
Imprint:   Penguin Books Ltd
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 197mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 17mm
Weight:   180g
ISBN:   9780141001647
ISBN 10:   014100164X
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

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.

Reviews for A House Unlocked

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)


See Also