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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... night skies. Bessie hated the coal. She was fastidious and rare. Smells offended her, grit irritated her. How could they live, up there, in such coarse comforts, so unknowingly? She was alien. She was a changeling. She was of a finer ...
... night skies. Bessie hated the coal. She was fastidious and rare. Smells offended her, grit irritated her. How could they live, up there, in such coarse comforts, so unknowingly? She was alien. She was a changeling. She was of a finer ...
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... night?' 'His anger endureth but a moment: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' We must find our sustenance where we may. The texts of the Hebrews travelled by strange routes to the South Yorkshire coalfields ...
... night?' 'His anger endureth but a moment: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' We must find our sustenance where we may. The texts of the Hebrews travelled by strange routes to the South Yorkshire coalfields ...
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... night the moon's brightness glimmered through the smoky air? Other children played on the street. Why was Bessie sitting there intoning verses to a cotton bobbin instead of sitting by her mother's knee and helping her with the peg rug ...
... night the moon's brightness glimmered through the smoky air? Other children played on the street. Why was Bessie sitting there intoning verses to a cotton bobbin instead of sitting by her mother's knee and helping her with the peg rug ...
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... nights. She was, during this period, promoted to the bed in her parents' bedroom, though she was never to be sure why: was it for convenience, was it through a superstitious respect? There she lay, as empires crumbled, as fateful peace ...
... nights. She was, during this period, promoted to the bed in her parents' bedroom, though she was never to be sure why: was it for convenience, was it through a superstitious respect? There she lay, as empires crumbled, as fateful peace ...
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... disturbingly, not quite grammatically: A sudden shock which did appear And took my life away. At morn I was in health and strength At night as cold as clay. The uncertainty of the grammar seemed to intensify the uncertainty 29.
... disturbingly, not quite grammatically: A sudden shock which did appear And took my life away. At morn I was in health and strength At night as cold as clay. The uncertainty of the grammar seemed to intensify the uncertainty 29.
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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