The Peppered MothBessie Bawtry is a young girl living in the early 1900s in Breaseborough, 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 be able to 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 later, Bessie's granddaughter, Faro Gaulden, 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 unexplained resurgence. "The Peppered Moth" is a brilliantly conceived novel, full of irony, sadness, and humor. |
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Page 169
... Chrissie and Robert had been brought up to regard Breaseborough as a foreign country . Bessie herself never went there . She spoke of it with loathing . She despised her birthplace . She declared , to anyone who would listen , that she ...
... Chrissie and Robert had been brought up to regard Breaseborough as a foreign country . Bessie herself never went there . She spoke of it with loathing . She despised her birthplace . She declared , to anyone who would listen , that she ...
Page 175
... Robert and Chrissie to walk or take the bus or tram alone . She even sent Chrissie , aged seven , down to the shops for her . And it is fair to say that the streets were safer , then . Robert and Chrissie grew independent early ...
... Robert and Chrissie to walk or take the bus or tram alone . She even sent Chrissie , aged seven , down to the shops for her . And it is fair to say that the streets were safer , then . Robert and Chrissie grew independent early ...
Page 196
... Robert and Chrissie , trying to retrace the progress of the disease which was eating up their mother and punishing their father . It stretched back too far for them to know its ori- gins . It stretched back beyond old Ellen Bawtry , who ...
... Robert and Chrissie , trying to retrace the progress of the disease which was eating up their mother and punishing their father . It stretched back too far for them to know its ori- gins . It stretched back beyond old Ellen Bawtry , who ...
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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 hair Hammervale happy Highcross Holderfield Jenny Pargiter Joe Barron knew listened lived look Lyme Regis married Miss Heald mother never Nick Gaulden Nick's night Northam once peppered moth Peter Cudworth ring Robert and Chrissie Rose & Rose round Rowena says Faro seemed 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