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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... deaths, spawned foreign broods. The Bawtrys had stuck here through the ages. Cautious and slow, they had not even crossed the grimy brook. And how should she, a puny sickly child, find the strength to loosen the grip of this hard land ...
... deaths, spawned foreign broods. The Bawtrys had stuck here through the ages. Cautious and slow, they had not even crossed the grimy brook. And how should she, a puny sickly child, find the strength to loosen the grip of this hard land ...
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... a teaspoon hot from his tea. He also described with too much relish the deaths of cats and dogs in the burning fiery furnace of the Destructor at the Electrical Works, and the injuries sustained by miners down the pit. 12.
... a teaspoon hot from his tea. He also described with too much relish the deaths of cats and dogs in the burning fiery furnace of the Destructor at the Electrical Works, and the injuries sustained by miners down the pit. 12.
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... Death of the fourteenth century. According to some authorities, it originated in the spring of 1918—in San Sebastian? in Almeria? The Spanish, who, unlike much of the rest of the world, were not at war, and therefore did not censor ...
... Death of the fourteenth century. According to some authorities, it originated in the spring of 1918—in San Sebastian? in Almeria? The Spanish, who, unlike much of the rest of the world, were not at war, and therefore did not censor ...
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... deaths. Let us return to Bessie Bawtry, who survived the first four crucial days, but remained ill for twenty days and ... death throes and to the rapid beatings of her little childish heart. There she felt both safe and happy. Her mind ...
... deaths. Let us return to Bessie Bawtry, who survived the first four crucial days, but remained ill for twenty days and ... death throes and to the rapid beatings of her little childish heart. There she felt both safe and happy. Her mind ...
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... death'. She had wondered about the many 'beloved daughters'—would she merit the epithet 'beloved' when dead? She had read the names of those who had died in colliery disasters. The most eloquent of these epitaphs read, disturbingly, not ...
... death'. She had wondered about the many 'beloved daughters'—would she merit the epithet 'beloved' when dead? She had read the names of those who had died in colliery disasters. The most eloquent of these epitaphs read, disturbingly, not ...
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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