The Peppered MothThe prize-winning author of The Dark Flood Rises offers an “absorbing” portrait of three generations of women—inspired by her own family (The New York Times Book Review). In the early 1900s, young Bessie Bawtry grows up in a mining town in South Yorkshire, England. Unusually gifted, she longs to escape a life burdened by unquestioned tradition. She studies patiently, dreaming of the day when she will take the entrance exam for Cambridge and leave her narrow world. A generation later, Bessie’s daughter Chrissie feels a similar impulse to expand her horizons, which she in turn passes on to her own daughter. Nearly a century after that, Bessie’s granddaughter finds herself listening to a lecture on genetics and biological determinism. She has returned to Breaseborough and wonders at the families who remained in the humble little town where Bessie grew up. Confronted with what would have been her life had her grandmother stayed, she finds herself faced with difficult questions. Is she really so different from the plain South Yorkshire locals? As she soon learns, the past has a way of reasserting itself—not unlike the peppered moth that was once thought to be nearing extinction but is now enjoying a sudden and unexplained resurgence. With The Peppered Moth, the acclaimed author of The Seven Sisters conjures a captivating work of semi-fiction, grappling with her memory of her own mother and the indelible mark of family and heredity. |
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... roses of Sharon, fishpools of Heshbon and vineyards of Samaria. Its polysyllables had nourished famished poets and wandering Jews and political prisoners and religious fanatics for centuries, and now they nourished Bessie Bawtry. She ...
... roses of Sharon, fishpools of Heshbon and vineyards of Samaria. Its polysyllables had nourished famished poets and wandering Jews and political prisoners and religious fanatics for centuries, and now they nourished Bessie Bawtry. She ...
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... Rose of Sharon, when Bessie eventually came to identify it as a plant, was to prove a great disappointment to her. 'I am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Valley.' Was this the excellency of Carmel and the glory of Lebanon? Surely 9.
... Rose of Sharon, when Bessie eventually came to identify it as a plant, was to prove a great disappointment to her. 'I am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Valley.' Was this the excellency of Carmel and the glory of Lebanon? Surely 9.
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... rose and rose. Was influenza connected with swine, or with dogs, or with ferrets, or with pigeons? Was it caused by a bacterium? (Yes, argued Sir Paul Gordon Fildes, who mistakenly backed bacterium Haemophilus influenzae.) Was it a ...
... rose and rose. Was influenza connected with swine, or with dogs, or with ferrets, or with pigeons? Was it caused by a bacterium? (Yes, argued Sir Paul Gordon Fildes, who mistakenly backed bacterium Haemophilus influenzae.) Was it a ...
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... rose and fell in their tentative half-grown bodies and undeveloped hearts. O poor young girls in flower, you poor frail darlings, who will watch over you, who will guide and protect you, and will you ever safely reach the happy bourn ...
... rose and fell in their tentative half-grown bodies and undeveloped hearts. O poor young girls in flower, you poor frail darlings, who will watch over you, who will guide and protect you, and will you ever safely reach the happy bourn ...
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... roses. Each cup had within its bowl, opposite the sipping lips of the drinker, a passionflower, though Bessie did not recognize it as a specimen of a species she had never seen. Passionflowers were not much cultivated in South Yorkshire ...
... roses. Each cup had within its bowl, opposite the sipping lips of the drinker, a passionflower, though Bessie did not recognize it as a specimen of a species she had never seen. Passionflowers were not much cultivated in South Yorkshire ...
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Common terms and phrases
Auntie Dora babies Bert Bessie Barron Bessie Bawtry Bessie's boys Breasebor Breaseborough Cambridge Chrissie's coal Cotterhall dark daugh daughter dead death Donald Sinclair Dora's Dr Hawthorn earth Edith Sitwell Ellen Bawtry eyes Faro Gaulden Faro's father Fiona George Bellew Georgette Heyer Gertrude Wadsworth girl glass Hammervale happy Highcross Holderfield Jenny Pargiter Joe Barron knew listened live look Lyme Regis married Miss Heald mother never Nick Gaulden Nick's night Northam once peppered moth Peter Cudworth ring Robert and Chrissie Rose round Rowena says Faro Sebastian seemed sister sister Dora Slotton Road smell South Yorkshire Spanish flu stare Stella Steve Nieman story sure T. S. Eliot tell thing thought tried waiting waste watch woman women wonder young