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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... Eye The Realms of Gold The Ice Age The Middle Ground The Radiant Way A Natural Curiosity The Gates of Ivory The Witch of Exmoor OTHER WORKS Arnold Bennett: A Biography A Writer's Britain The Oxford Companion to English Literature ...
... Eye The Realms of Gold The Ice Age The Middle Ground The Radiant Way A Natural Curiosity The Gates of Ivory The Witch of Exmoor OTHER WORKS Arnold Bennett: A Biography A Writer's Britain The Oxford Companion to English Literature ...
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... eye around, and see if you can discern a pattern amongst these descendants. Can you tell from whom they may descend, can you discern the form of their common ancestor? Will Dr Hawthorn be able to reveal their origins to them, and if he ...
... eye around, and see if you can discern a pattern amongst these descendants. Can you tell from whom they may descend, can you discern the form of their common ancestor? Will Dr Hawthorn be able to reveal their origins to them, and if he ...
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... eyes, and of burning the back of her hand with 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 ...
... eyes, and of burning the back of her hand with 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 ...
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... eyes averted, themselves on the edge of nervous laughter, gathered themselves together, and braved the gauntlet, and marched on with their noses in the air. Little doomed free spirits, coal babies, urchins. 'Whatever next?' said Bessie ...
... eyes averted, themselves on the edge of nervous laughter, gathered themselves together, and braved the gauntlet, and marched on with their noses in the air. Little doomed free spirits, coal babies, urchins. 'Whatever next?' said Bessie ...
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... eye open for intruders and passersby, while they tested one another on French irregular verbs. 'Fear, Doubt, Shame, Pleasure, Regret, Surprise,' chanted Ada dutifully, as they revised the subjunctive. And so they were discovered ...
... eye open for intruders and passersby, while they tested one another on French irregular verbs. 'Fear, Doubt, Shame, Pleasure, Regret, Surprise,' chanted Ada dutifully, as they revised the subjunctive. And so they were discovered ...
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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