excellent reference material, 30 Mar 2007
i found this book extremely useful when I need to get a brief synopsis of some literature or writer, not only does it tell the story but it also offers a brief analysis. It is also useful if you need to quickly refresh your memory of some literature or if you need to compare some works. a bit heavy to carry around but for home study you couldn't wish for more.

every English student must have it!, 12 Feb 2006
I study English literature in Milan and this book is simply fundamental! There you can find many authors, plot descriptions, literary currents, ideas, criticism...
It is just a bit heavy if you read it before sleeping, but truly perfect! A must have!

A worthy companion, 24 Dec 2005
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

Wonderful, 29 Dec 2001
A wonderful,thorough,accessible book. It covers most great authors and master-pieces, discussing in depth the main concepts of each work. A must-have for all English students!!!

Every book reader needs one., 04 Sep 2001
This is a fantastic guide to almost every book in literary history that you would want to know about. It higlights the main points of great masterpieces, and is very helpful into giving you a greater understanding of the themes that the author is trying to put across. Buy this is you take your reading seriously.

excellent reference material, 30 Mar 2007
i found this book extremely useful when I need to get a brief synopsis of some literature or writer, not only does it tell the story but it also offers a brief analysis. It is also useful if you need to quickly refresh your memory of some literature or if you need to compare some works. a bit heavy to carry around but for home study you couldn't wish for more.

every English student must have it!, 12 Feb 2006
I study English literature in Milan and this book is simply fundamental! There you can find many authors, plot descriptions, literary currents, ideas, criticism...
It is just a bit heavy if you read it before sleeping, but truly perfect! A must have!

A worthy companion, 24 Dec 2005
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

Wonderful, 29 Dec 2001
A wonderful,thorough,accessible book. It covers most great authors and master-pieces, discussing in depth the main concepts of each work. A must-have for all English students!!!

Every book reader needs one., 04 Sep 2001
This is a fantastic guide to almost every book in literary history that you would want to know about. It higlights the main points of great masterpieces, and is very helpful into giving you a greater understanding of the themes that the author is trying to put across. Buy this is you take your reading seriously.

Aging, Longing, and Loving in the Upper-Middle Class, 17 Oct 2007
For some reason I seem lately to have been reading several novels about aging, depressed, and lonely academics or members of the media or arts community--E.g. Shroud, by Banville; Amsterdam by McEwan, and A Foreign Affair by Lurie, among others. The Sea Lady is another and one of the best of this flourishing genre. As in The Sea Lady the protagonists seem always to be highly successful (unlike most of us real aging academics reading or writing amazon reviews), very depressed about their miserable lives (but it's not always clear why and sometimes seems self-indulgent), are divorced or in any case alone and lonely (but many of us real retired academics are still married, with rafts of grand children), and are almost obsessively self-involved (aren't we all? Or perhaps I should just speak for myself here).

The Sea Lady is the compressed life story of several children who meet one or two summers shortly after World War II on the seashore of England near the border with Scotland on the North Sea. Two, Ailsa and Humphrey, meet later in life, fall in love and marry, divorce, etc. Then meet again in their sixties, etc., etc. All the children turn out to be famous or wealthy as adults; all are successful, miserable, lonely, aging or aged now in 2006 (the story is told seamlessly with flashbacks). Drabble is a fine writer with a sensitive simple style that is very similar to Ian McEwan's but without the twisted, dark tones of McEwan. Although nothing happens in the novel, there is no violence, little lurid sex, or anything else of moment, I found it gripping and enjoyable. This is life, a mirror for us aging academics. Even if we're not successful or miserable and lonely there is much in this novel that illuminates and perhaps quiets our own demons.

Some of the things I very much liked about The Sea Lady: Drabble manages to weave a lot of trivia about life in England since WW II into her narrative. This novel evoked England for me better than many others that I've read lately (I'm a confirmed anglophile--I live in New York). Also Drabble uses quotes and snippets from Shakespeare in a creative and charming way that enhances the story. (I'm also a life-long Shakespeare fan.)

I must say that I am amazed by Drabble's talent. I wonder how she can breathe such life, such intensity into her story and characters. I admire and wonder at this talent, this genius. As with other fine writers, I wonder how they can know so much, sense so many things and get them on the page and make them live off the page. This is the first of Drabble's novels that I have read and I came upon it by accident, but I plan to read more of her works. Congratulations!

Disappointed, 04 Oct 2007
I have been a great fan of Margaret Drabble for many years and have read all her other books. I could not wait to read this one. It has proved a huge disappointment; I found it slow and rather turgid . The past was indeed beautifully evoked but it did not seem to ground the intense connections which brought the characters together in the future - rather I was left puzzled as to their emotional motivations. A lovely idea but maybe did not come out in the execution.

A wonderful evocation of childhood, 16 Sep 2007
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman met briefly as children in north-east England. They later meet up as lovers and embark on a short unfortunate marriage. Both have gone on to eke out very different careers. Ailsa has made a name for herself through her academic work on feminism and then through media appearances. She scandalized people by putatively wearing a foetus as a pendant. Humphrey has had a fairly successful career as a marine biologist albeit not without disappointments. At the Green Grotto (in the white elephant at Greenwich) which he had a part in setting up is a robotic mermaid who moves in and out of the water. His embarrassment at this as he escorts his grandson is almost tangible.

Their stories unfold as they travel back to Ornemouth fifty years later to receive honorary doctorates at one of the country's newer universities.

The book is a wonderful evocation of childhood at the seaside as well as the anxieties and uncertainties of ageing. There are constant references to sea life and marine biology (Ailsa's name, her mermaid-like dress, their journey compared to salmon coming home to spawn)

A grown-up book for grown-ups!



A fishy tale from the author of The Ice Age and The Gates Of Ivory, 09 Aug 2007
Margaret Drabble's latest novel chronicles a journey - or rather two journeys which are set to converge, with surprising results. Briefly and unsuccessfully married thirty years before, ageing experts Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark are making separate trips north to a provincial town where they are both to receive honorary degrees. Although they appear to come from quite different worlds - Ailsa the wildly controversial academic and feminist pundit, Humphrey the quietly distinguished marine biologist - they once shared an emotional language which both have now almost forgotten how to speak.

As they make their separate pilgrimages towards the scene of a first idyllic childhood summer, Drabble takes us back through time to revisit each reminiscence and regret, chronicling the progress of the couple's strangely unfulfilled relationship. She is excellent when evoking memory, and every detail - from the "tarry masculine seafaring smell of creosote" to the "heathery blend of colours" on a tweedy aunt's sensible suit - evokes a vanished English world with aching veracity.

Drabble links personality with myth throughout the novel, in almost overwhelming fashion. Sea Lady Ailsa, named after an island in the Firth of Clyde, is first revealed dressed in "silver sequinned scales", and the ageing Humphrey recalls how salmon return to the spawning grounds - "the source" - at the end of their lives. Ailsa's life has been glamorous but ultimately lonely, like that of the animatronic mermaid Humphrey watches mechanically circling a grotto pool in a civic aquarium. There's a lot of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid" in Ailsa; despite her strident feminism and varied career, and although she has long since given up the "high knife heels" she once wore, there is still a sense that she is a fish out of water, a beached and crippled mermaid looking for her destiny in an indifferent world.

Humphrey is also a disappointed man, forced to forgo fame by his refusal to compete for funding and recognition at the expense of serious science. The Green Grotto, home of the robotic mermaid, is the all too tangible symbol of his failure; conceived as a research establishment and teaching facility, it's become no more than an expensive tourist sideshow. It's also a fairly obvious sideswipe at the dumbing down of modern science teaching and the great White Elephant of Greenwich.

The slow convergence of these disparate lovers is controlled and overseen by the mysterious "Public Orator", a metafictional narrative device which seems unsatisfactory for most of the novel's length. He makes sense only at the novel's denouement, once he is able to step into the action - though he remains a shadowy and somewhat insubstantial figure to the end. Much more satisfying is the sense we have (the novel is subtitled A Late Romance) that in returning to the source, perhaps the Sea Lady might be about to find her true element at last.

first published at subba-cultcha.com

WHAT A WINNER!, 25 Sep 2006
I really loved this book. I finished reading it a few minutes ago and ran to the computer to write this review so other people could buy the book and enjoy it as I had.
From the beginning with the description of Ailsa's beautiful dress in which 'she appeared to have dressed herself as a mermaid, in silver sequinned scales', you realise that she is a very sensuous woman and later in the book, she delivers another speech which is so brilliantly executed, that you feel the tension of the audience as 'Ailsa, sensing its lowered guard, goes in for the kill.'
The description of that particular speech is masterfully written, so that you are swayed with the movement of the lines, until you hold your breath for the last climactic moment and then want to join the rapturous applause of the audience.
Then we meet Humphrey Clark, travelling by train from King's Cross to the far northern town by the sea, where his childhood had been played out, remembering all the events which took place and worrying about this particular event which he is facing and what its significance might be.
He is a highly intelligent man, who worries and is not independent of others as Ailsa is.
The person referred to as the Public Orator grates a little at first because he seems to be a construct in order to give the book a post-modern, objective slant, but later, we realise that he is another character who is revealed to us, along with the fleeting appearance of the opera singer, Dame Mary McTaggart, a cameo performance which is unforgettable.
This is Margaret Drabble at her best, informing us about things which fascinate her, drawing us into events so that we can feel the atmosphere and we shiver with delight and she reminds us constantly of the short passage of time.
'The journey draws to its end, but it is not over yet.'
But this book, it's wonderful!

excellent reference material, 30 Mar 2007
i found this book extremely useful when I need to get a brief synopsis of some literature or writer, not only does it tell the story but it also offers a brief analysis. It is also useful if you need to quickly refresh your memory of some literature or if you need to compare some works. a bit heavy to carry around but for home study you couldn't wish for more.

every English student must have it!, 12 Feb 2006
I study English literature in Milan and this book is simply fundamental! There you can find many authors, plot descriptions, literary currents, ideas, criticism...
It is just a bit heavy if you read it before sleeping, but truly perfect! A must have!

A worthy companion, 24 Dec 2005
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

Wonderful, 29 Dec 2001
A wonderful,thorough,accessible book. It covers most great authors and master-pieces, discussing in depth the main concepts of each work. A must-have for all English students!!!

Every book reader needs one., 04 Sep 2001
This is a fantastic guide to almost every book in literary history that you would want to know about. It higlights the main points of great masterpieces, and is very helpful into giving you a greater understanding of the themes that the author is trying to put across. Buy this is you take your reading seriously.

Aging, Longing, and Loving in the Upper-Middle Class, 17 Oct 2007
For some reason I seem lately to have been reading several novels about aging, depressed, and lonely academics or members of the media or arts community--E.g. Shroud, by Banville; Amsterdam by McEwan, and A Foreign Affair by Lurie, among others. The Sea Lady is another and one of the best of this flourishing genre. As in The Sea Lady the protagonists seem always to be highly successful (unlike most of us real aging academics reading or writing amazon reviews), very depressed about their miserable lives (but it's not always clear why and sometimes seems self-indulgent), are divorced or in any case alone and lonely (but many of us real retired academics are still married, with rafts of grand children), and are almost obsessively self-involved (aren't we all? Or perhaps I should just speak for myself here).

The Sea Lady is the compressed life story of several children who meet one or two summers shortly after World War II on the seashore of England near the border with Scotland on the North Sea. Two, Ailsa and Humphrey, meet later in life, fall in love and marry, divorce, etc. Then meet again in their sixties, etc., etc. All the children turn out to be famous or wealthy as adults; all are successful, miserable, lonely, aging or aged now in 2006 (the story is told seamlessly with flashbacks). Drabble is a fine writer with a sensitive simple style that is very similar to Ian McEwan's but without the twisted, dark tones of McEwan. Although nothing happens in the novel, there is no violence, little lurid sex, or anything else of moment, I found it gripping and enjoyable. This is life, a mirror for us aging academics. Even if we're not successful or miserable and lonely there is much in this novel that illuminates and perhaps quiets our own demons.

Some of the things I very much liked about The Sea Lady: Drabble manages to weave a lot of trivia about life in England since WW II into her narrative. This novel evoked England for me better than many others that I've read lately (I'm a confirmed anglophile--I live in New York). Also Drabble uses quotes and snippets from Shakespeare in a creative and charming way that enhances the story. (I'm also a life-long Shakespeare fan.)

I must say that I am amazed by Drabble's talent. I wonder how she can breathe such life, such intensity into her story and characters. I admire and wonder at this talent, this genius. As with other fine writers, I wonder how they can know so much, sense so many things and get them on the page and make them live off the page. This is the first of Drabble's novels that I have read and I came upon it by accident, but I plan to read more of her works. Congratulations!

Disappointed, 04 Oct 2007
I have been a great fan of Margaret Drabble for many years and have read all her other books. I could not wait to read this one. It has proved a huge disappointment; I found it slow and rather turgid . The past was indeed beautifully evoked but it did not seem to ground the intense connections which brought the characters together in the future - rather I was left puzzled as to their emotional motivations. A lovely idea but maybe did not come out in the execution.

A wonderful evocation of childhood, 16 Sep 2007
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman met briefly as children in north-east England. They later meet up as lovers and embark on a short unfortunate marriage. Both have gone on to eke out very different careers. Ailsa has made a name for herself through her academic work on feminism and then through media appearances. She scandalized people by putatively wearing a foetus as a pendant. Humphrey has had a fairly successful career as a marine biologist albeit not without disappointments. At the Green Grotto (in the white elephant at Greenwich) which he had a part in setting up is a robotic mermaid who moves in and out of the water. His embarrassment at this as he escorts his grandson is almost tangible.

Their stories unfold as they travel back to Ornemouth fifty years later to receive honorary doctorates at one of the country's newer universities.

The book is a wonderful evocation of childhood at the seaside as well as the anxieties and uncertainties of ageing. There are constant references to sea life and marine biology (Ailsa's name, her mermaid-like dress, their journey compared to salmon coming home to spawn)

A grown-up book for grown-ups!



A fishy tale from the author of The Ice Age and The Gates Of Ivory, 09 Aug 2007
Margaret Drabble's latest novel chronicles a journey - or rather two journeys which are set to converge, with surprising results. Briefly and unsuccessfully married thirty years before, ageing experts Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark are making separate trips north to a provincial town where they are both to receive honorary degrees. Although they appear to come from quite different worlds - Ailsa the wildly controversial academic and feminist pundit, Humphrey the quietly distinguished marine biologist - they once shared an emotional language which both have now almost forgotten how to speak.

As they make their separate pilgrimages towards the scene of a first idyllic childhood summer, Drabble takes us back through time to revisit each reminiscence and regret, chronicling the progress of the couple's strangely unfulfilled relationship. She is excellent when evoking memory, and every detail - from the "tarry masculine seafaring smell of creosote" to the "heathery blend of colours" on a tweedy aunt's sensible suit - evokes a vanished English world with aching veracity.

Drabble links personality with myth throughout the novel, in almost overwhelming fashion. Sea Lady Ailsa, named after an island in the Firth of Clyde, is first revealed dressed in "silver sequinned scales", and the ageing Humphrey recalls how salmon return to the spawning grounds - "the source" - at the end of their lives. Ailsa's life has been glamorous but ultimately lonely, like that of the animatronic mermaid Humphrey watches mechanically circling a grotto pool in a civic aquarium. There's a lot of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid" in Ailsa; despite her strident feminism and varied career, and although she has long since given up the "high knife heels" she once wore, there is still a sense that she is a fish out of water, a beached and crippled mermaid looking for her destiny in an indifferent world.

Humphrey is also a disappointed man, forced to forgo fame by his refusal to compete for funding and recognition at the expense of serious science. The Green Grotto, home of the robotic mermaid, is the all too tangible symbol of his failure; conceived as a research establishment and teaching facility, it's become no more than an expensive tourist sideshow. It's also a fairly obvious sideswipe at the dumbing down of modern science teaching and the great White Elephant of Greenwich.

The slow convergence of these disparate lovers is controlled and overseen by the mysterious "Public Orator", a metafictional narrative device which seems unsatisfactory for most of the novel's length. He makes sense only at the novel's denouement, once he is able to step into the action - though he remains a shadowy and somewhat insubstantial figure to the end. Much more satisfying is the sense we have (the novel is subtitled A Late Romance) that in returning to the source, perhaps the Sea Lady might be about to find her true element at last.

first published at subba-cultcha.com

WHAT A WINNER!, 25 Sep 2006
I really loved this book. I finished reading it a few minutes ago and ran to the computer to write this review so other people could buy the book and enjoy it as I had.
From the beginning with the description of Ailsa's beautiful dress in which 'she appeared to have dressed herself as a mermaid, in silver sequinned scales', you realise that she is a very sensuous woman and later in the book, she delivers another speech which is so brilliantly executed, that you feel the tension of the audience as 'Ailsa, sensing its lowered guard, goes in for the kill.'
The description of that particular speech is masterfully written, so that you are swayed with the movement of the lines, until you hold your breath for the last climactic moment and then want to join the rapturous applause of the audience.
Then we meet Humphrey Clark, travelling by train from King's Cross to the far northern town by the sea, where his childhood had been played out, remembering all the events which took place and worrying about this particular event which he is facing and what its significance might be.
He is a highly intelligent man, who worries and is not independent of others as Ailsa is.
The person referred to as the Public Orator grates a little at first because he seems to be a construct in order to give the book a post-modern, objective slant, but later, we realise that he is another character who is revealed to us, along with the fleeting appearance of the opera singer, Dame Mary McTaggart, a cameo performance which is unforgettable.
This is Margaret Drabble at her best, informing us about things which fascinate her, drawing us into events so that we can feel the atmosphere and we shiver with delight and she reminds us constantly of the short passage of time.
'The journey draws to its end, but it is not over yet.'
But this book, it's wonderful!


Essential Jane Austen., 10 Apr 2002
Our capacity to form first impressions was one that Jane Austen examines in all her fiction. Her characters sometimes are shown to form incorrect impressions. Her characters often strive to give false impressions. None of her fictional characters is as preoccupied with setting up a public image in order to gain her own ends as the Lady Susan who gives this novella its name. Lady Susan is the archetypal coquette, the skilled deceiver. She is Thackeray’s Becky Sharp, fifty years before her time.

Jane Austen plays the game of deception with us too. In this novella, which is almost entirely in epistolary form, we form the impression from reading Lady Susan’s first letter, that she is a grieving widow, devoted to the care and education of her 16 year old daughter, and willing at last to accede to her brother-in-law’s pressing invitation to stay with him and his family. Wrong! We too have been duped, as we soon discover.

Jane Austen first drafted several of her novels in epistolary form, that is to say, in the form of letters exchanged by her characters. This one, which may have been the earliest of all her surviving works, alone remained in this form. And great fun it is, although Lady Susan’s contriving and heartlessness, especially in regard to her daughter, sometimes goes beyond the comic to the cruel.

Naxos has added to the fun that this “entertainement” can provide by issuing the novella in audio book form. Seven actors are allocated the parts of the seven letter writers. Furthermore, there is no abridgement of the text, and there are some snatches of music that serve to provide breaks between the letters and indicate the passing of time. Altogether, an ideal production.

most enjoyable, 31 Jan 2002
I enjoyed the beautiful language and style of this audiobook. Once started it was impossible to stop the CD player. Lady Susan with her manipulative skills is amazing!

excellent reference material, 30 Mar 2007
i found this book extremely useful when I need to get a brief synopsis of some literature or writer, not only does it tell the story but it also offers a brief analysis. It is also useful if you need to quickly refresh your memory of some literature or if you need to compare some works. a bit heavy to carry around but for home study you couldn't wish for more.

every English student must have it!, 12 Feb 2006
I study English literature in Milan and this book is simply fundamental! There you can find many authors, plot descriptions, literary currents, ideas, criticism...
It is just a bit heavy if you read it before sleeping, but truly perfect! A must have!

A worthy companion, 24 Dec 2005
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

Wonderful, 29 Dec 2001
A wonderful,thorough,accessible book. It covers most great authors and master-pieces, discussing in depth the main concepts of each work. A must-have for all English students!!!

Every book reader needs one., 04 Sep 2001
This is a fantastic guide to almost every book in literary history that you would want to know about. It higlights the main points of great masterpieces, and is very helpful into giving you a greater understanding of the themes that the author is trying to put across. Buy this is you take your reading seriously.

Aging, Longing, and Loving in the Upper-Middle Class, 17 Oct 2007
For some reason I seem lately to have been reading several novels about aging, depressed, and lonely academics or members of the media or arts community--E.g. Shroud, by Banville; Amsterdam by McEwan, and A Foreign Affair by Lurie, among others. The Sea Lady is another and one of the best of this flourishing genre. As in The Sea Lady the protagonists seem always to be highly successful (unlike most of us real aging academics reading or writing amazon reviews), very depressed about their miserable lives (but it's not always clear why and sometimes seems self-indulgent), are divorced or in any case alone and lonely (but many of us real retired academics are still married, with rafts of grand children), and are almost obsessively self-involved (aren't we all? Or perhaps I should just speak for myself here).

The Sea Lady is the compressed life story of several children who meet one or two summers shortly after World War II on the seashore of England near the border with Scotland on the North Sea. Two, Ailsa and Humphrey, meet later in life, fall in love and marry, divorce, etc. Then meet again in their sixties, etc., etc. All the children turn out to be famous or wealthy as adults; all are successful, miserable, lonely, aging or aged now in 2006 (the story is told seamlessly with flashbacks). Drabble is a fine writer with a sensitive simple style that is very similar to Ian McEwan's but without the twisted, dark tones of McEwan. Although nothing happens in the novel, there is no violence, little lurid sex, or anything else of moment, I found it gripping and enjoyable. This is life, a mirror for us aging academics. Even if we're not successful or miserable and lonely there is much in this novel that illuminates and perhaps quiets our own demons.

Some of the things I very much liked about The Sea Lady: Drabble manages to weave a lot of trivia about life in England since WW II into her narrative. This novel evoked England for me better than many others that I've read lately (I'm a confirmed anglophile--I live in New York). Also Drabble uses quotes and snippets from Shakespeare in a creative and charming way that enhances the story. (I'm also a life-long Shakespeare fan.)

I must say that I am amazed by Drabble's talent. I wonder how she can breathe such life, such intensity into her story and characters. I admire and wonder at this talent, this genius. As with other fine writers, I wonder how they can know so much, sense so many things and get them on the page and make them live off the page. This is the first of Drabble's novels that I have read and I came upon it by accident, but I plan to read more of her works. Congratulations!

Disappointed, 04 Oct 2007
I have been a great fan of Margaret Drabble for many years and have read all her other books. I could not wait to read this one. It has proved a huge disappointment; I found it slow and rather turgid . The past was indeed beautifully evoked but it did not seem to ground the intense connections which brought the characters together in the future - rather I was left puzzled as to their emotional motivations. A lovely idea but maybe did not come out in the execution.

A wonderful evocation of childhood, 16 Sep 2007
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman met briefly as children in north-east England. They later meet up as lovers and embark on a short unfortunate marriage. Both have gone on to eke out very different careers. Ailsa has made a name for herself through her academic work on feminism and then through media appearances. She scandalized people by putatively wearing a foetus as a pendant. Humphrey has had a fairly successful career as a marine biologist albeit not without disappointments. At the Green Grotto (in the white elephant at Greenwich) which he had a part in setting up is a robotic mermaid who moves in and out of the water. His embarrassment at this as he escorts his grandson is almost tangible.

Their stories unfold as they travel back to Ornemouth fifty years later to receive honorary doctorates at one of the country's newer universities.

The book is a wonderful evocation of childhood at the seaside as well as the anxieties and uncertainties of ageing. There are constant references to sea life and marine biology (Ailsa's name, her mermaid-like dress, their journey compared to salmon coming home to spawn)

A grown-up book for grown-ups!



A fishy tale from the author of The Ice Age and The Gates Of Ivory, 09 Aug 2007
Margaret Drabble's latest novel chronicles a journey - or rather two journeys which are set to converge, with surprising results. Briefly and unsuccessfully married thirty years before, ageing experts Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark are making separate trips north to a provincial town where they are both to receive honorary degrees. Although they appear to come from quite different worlds - Ailsa the wildly controversial academic and feminist pundit, Humphrey the quietly distinguished marine biologist - they once shared an emotional language which both have now almost forgotten how to speak.

As they make their separate pilgrimages towards the scene of a first idyllic childhood summer, Drabble takes us back through time to revisit each reminiscence and regret, chronicling the progress of the couple's strangely unfulfilled relationship. She is excellent when evoking memory, and every detail - from the "tarry masculine seafaring smell of creosote" to the "heathery blend of colours" on a tweedy aunt's sensible suit - evokes a vanished English world with aching veracity.

Drabble links personality with myth throughout the novel, in almost overwhelming fashion. Sea Lady Ailsa, named after an island in the Firth of Clyde, is first revealed dressed in "silver sequinned scales", and the ageing Humphrey recalls how salmon return to the spawning grounds - "the source" - at the end of their lives. Ailsa's life has been glamorous but ultimately lonely, like that of the animatronic mermaid Humphrey watches mechanically circling a grotto pool in a civic aquarium. There's a lot of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid" in Ailsa; despite her strident feminism and varied career, and although she has long since given up the "high knife heels" she once wore, there is still a sense that she is a fish out of water, a beached and crippled mermaid looking for her destiny in an indifferent world.

Humphrey is also a disappointed man, forced to forgo fame by his refusal to compete for funding and recognition at the expense of serious science. The Green Grotto, home of the robotic mermaid, is the all too tangible symbol of his failure; conceived as a research establishment and teaching facility, it's become no more than an expensive tourist sideshow. It's also a fairly obvious sideswipe at the dumbing down of modern science teaching and the great White Elephant of Greenwich.

The slow convergence of these disparate lovers is controlled and overseen by the mysterious "Public Orator", a metafictional narrative device which seems unsatisfactory for most of the novel's length. He makes sense only at the novel's denouement, once he is able to step into the action - though he remains a shadowy and somewhat insubstantial figure to the end. Much more satisfying is the sense we have (the novel is subtitled A Late Romance) that in returning to the source, perhaps the Sea Lady might be about to find her true element at last.

first published at subba-cultcha.com

WHAT A WINNER!, 25 Sep 2006
I really loved this book. I finished reading it a few minutes ago and ran to the computer to write this review so other people could buy the book and enjoy it as I had.
From the beginning with the description of Ailsa's beautiful dress in which 'she appeared to have dressed herself as a mermaid, in silver sequinned scales', you realise that she is a very sensuous woman and later in the book, she delivers another speech which is so brilliantly executed, that you feel the tension of the audience as 'Ailsa, sensing its lowered guard, goes in for the kill.'
The description of that particular speech is masterfully written, so that you are swayed with the movement of the lines, until you hold your breath for the last climactic moment and then want to join the rapturous applause of the audience.
Then we meet Humphrey Clark, travelling by train from King's Cross to the far northern town by the sea, where his childhood had been played out, remembering all the events which took place and worrying about this particular event which he is facing and what its significance might be.
He is a highly intelligent man, who worries and is not independent of others as Ailsa is.
The person referred to as the Public Orator grates a little at first because he seems to be a construct in order to give the book a post-modern, objective slant, but later, we realise that he is another character who is revealed to us, along with the fleeting appearance of the opera singer, Dame Mary McTaggart, a cameo performance which is unforgettable.
This is Margaret Drabble at her best, informing us about things which fascinate her, drawing us into events so that we can feel the atmosphere and we shiver with delight and she reminds us constantly of the short passage of time.
'The journey draws to its end, but it is not over yet.'
But this book, it's wonderful!


Essential Jane Austen., 10 Apr 2002
Our capacity to form first impressions was one that Jane Austen examines in all her fiction. Her characters sometimes are shown to form incorrect impressions. Her characters often strive to give false impressions. None of her fictional characters is as preoccupied with setting up a public image in order to gain her own ends as the Lady Susan who gives this novella its name. Lady Susan is the archetypal coquette, the skilled deceiver. She is Thackeray’s Becky Sharp, fifty years before her time.

Jane Austen plays the game of deception with us too. In this novella, which is almost entirely in epistolary form, we form the impression from reading Lady Susan’s first letter, that she is a grieving widow, devoted to the care and education of her 16 year old daughter, and willing at last to accede to her brother-in-law’s pressing invitation to stay with him and his family. Wrong! We too have been duped, as we soon discover.

Jane Austen first drafted several of her novels in epistolary form, that is to say, in the form of letters exchanged by her characters. This one, which may have been the earliest of all her surviving works, alone remained in this form. And great fun it is, although Lady Susan’s contriving and heartlessness, especially in regard to her daughter, sometimes goes beyond the comic to the cruel.

Naxos has added to the fun that this “entertainement” can provide by issuing the novella in audio book form. Seven actors are allocated the parts of the seven letter writers. Furthermore, there is no abridgement of the text, and there are some snatches of music that serve to provide breaks between the letters and indicate the passing of time. Altogether, an ideal production.

most enjoyable, 31 Jan 2002
I enjoyed the beautiful language and style of this audiobook. Once started it was impossible to stop the CD player. Lady Susan with her manipulative skills is amazing!

A first person account of being, 01 Mar 2008
Rosamund Stacey is the first person narrator of her own story in the Millstone by Margaret Drabble. Rosamund is a single mother - nothing strange about that, perhaps, at least in a twenty-first century Britain where now half of births are outside of marriage. But in the early 1960s, when The Millstone was written, unmarried mothers were not so common and it was a status to which considerable stigma was attached.

Consequently, when Rosamund visits hospital for her regular check-ups, she is summoned from the waiting room with a call of Mrs. Stacey in an attempt to maintain the privacy of her status. She longs for the day - and not too distant - when her thesis on Elizabethan poetry will be complete and she can prefix her name with Dr., thereby avoiding the deception.

The Millstone is written in Margaret Drabble's conversational, yet dense style. The characters are highly complex and seem to live their lives with a devotion to intricacy. Not much happens to them, however, and events are few and far between. Rosamund's life is a case in point. It was Cambridge, of course, followed by the relative comfort of a flat in central London, an apartment provided by her parents calculatedly close to the British Museum, where she does most of her research. She is definitely not the run-of-the-mill young lass who attends university nowadays, our Rosamund. She has a boyfriend at college, of course, but they never sleep together, not even on the occasion they jointly plan to accomplish the act.

Rosamund is not really into sex, she thinks. She has a tendency to see herself as an object from without, and her observation of the absurdity of various aspects of being human lead her to a life slightly removed from reality, lived apparently at arm's length from experience. Though she sees quite a lot of Joe and Roger - both quite different but eligible males - the idea of anything other than a chat and a drink appals her. Each of the two men, of course, think that the other is the boyfriend and so are loath to raise the subject.

Then, for some reason hardly known to herself, she takes up with George, a gay radio presenter, and sleeps with him. Just once. And yes, Rosamund is definitively pregnant. As ever, she cannot decide what to do and, even when she eventually plans her course, she is blown off onto a different tack. She has read that drinking a bottle of gin in a hot bath might do the trick. She sets an evening aside. And then, just as the bottle is opened, friends turn up, she offers them a drink and they share the otherwise-ntended gin between them.

Rosamund is thus never really in control, despite appearing to have a strangle hold on her life. Circumstances always seem to conspire to prevent her getting precisely what she wants. But this is eventually seen as an illusion. Perhaps she does get precisely what she wants, but does not tell us, or herself.

And so Octavia is born. The baby is a life that Rosamund contemplated ending, but when the child is ill, the thought of her coming to harm is too painful to admit. A friend, Lydia, moves in, shares the costs and sets about writing a novel. When this is complete, an unsupervised Octavia tears much of it up, though perhaps not disastrously. Rosamund reminds us that babies are persistent, not thorough, so most of the pages are preserved. It becomes the mother's trauma, however.

Rosamund could be described as measured, always apparently in control, yet always feeling she is swept along with the tide. Passionate she is not. When George, who still does not know he is Octavia's father, says she might do well with a husband, Rosamund agrees, but only because it would be nice to have someone who could help to fill in the tax return. George is no better, since for his the purpose of marriage seems to be to provide someone to iron his shirts. It's all terribly British.

But the characters are beautifully drawn, expertly pitched against themselves and their relationships. The Millstone, thus, explores motivation and achievement, and the relationship between selfishness and selflessness. In the end, we are who we are.


Lucky in work, unlucky in love, 04 Jan 2006
This moving short novel portraits the rude awakening of a young woman, who after making love with a 'silly bugger' becomes an unmarried mother.

The dreams of youth, 'I used to be so good-natured. I used to see the best in every-one', becomes 'my growing selfishness, this was probably maturity.' 'Life would never be a simple question of self-denial again.'

There is also the chasm between the education's view of mankind and the facts of real life.
Education was the cause of 'my inability to see anything in human terms of like and dislike, love and hate, but only in terms of justice, guilt and innocence', and 'the endurance of privation is a virtue.'
However as an adult, she is confronted with 'resentments breed so near the craddle, that people should have it from birth'; 'facts of inequality, of the heart-breaking uneven hardship of the human lot. These things were as nothing compared with the bond that bind parent and child'.
As another woman in the novel says: 'I haven't the energy to go worrying about other people's children. I only have enough time to worry about myself. If I didn't put myself and mine first, they wouldn't survive.'

And finally, there is the unbearable burden of Victorian religion: 'the thought of sex freightened the life out of me.' 'If Octavia were to die, this would be a vengeance upon my sin.'

In naturally flowing prose, Margaret Drabble paints a most human portrait of innocence and struggle for (emotional) survival, youth and adulthood and the mighty marks of religion (guilt) and 'unselfish' education.

A masterly written short novel.

A review: Margaret Drabble's 'Millstone', 25 Apr 2004
Drabble's 'Millstone' is very well written and thoughtful yet a fairlyeasy read. Evocative of the London literary milieu of the 1960s, itfocuses on the discovery of identity and independence through a developingmother-child relationship. The protagonist's eloquent soul searchingmingles with an account of the more mundane side to motherhood. Interesting for those concerned with women's issues, the development offeminism and socialism, and the relationship of the classes. Perhaps thenovel's only fault is a slightly unbelievable main character. Anenjoyable and engaging read overall.

Readable, if dated, 16 Oct 2001
This is very much a book of the place and times (England, mid 60s). An intellectual, rather naive young woman gets pregnant at a time when unmarried mothers were very much frowned upon, and keeps the baby. (Hence the title.) Nevertheless the book is an insight into the times, is very well written, never drags, and captures all the characters just perfectly.

Intellectual girl facing reality of life, 13 Aug 2000
This is a touching story, one snapshot of an unusual woman's life written nicely, wittingly and intellectually. Facing the unpleasantry of reailty since having the baby (such as having to ask somebody something not because of herself but because of her baby), she seems to be learning a lot of things. I don't particularly like the fact that she's so ill-prepared for having a baby, but still she's all right and has the consious, loving personality. The whole naration from beginning to the end really fascinated me. Drabble's later books seem to become richier with more characters and more incidents (I guess that's what most writers head for as they become better writers), but I like The Millstone for its simplicity and narrow setting.

excellent reference material, 30 Mar 2007
i found this book extremely useful when I need to get a brief synopsis of some literature or writer, not only does it tell the story but it also offers a brief analysis. It is also useful if you need to quickly refresh your memory of some literature or if you need to compare some works. a bit heavy to carry around but for home study you couldn't wish for more.

every English student must have it!, 12 Feb 2006
I study English literature in Milan and this book is simply fundamental! There you can find many authors, plot descriptions, literary currents, ideas, criticism...
It is just a bit heavy if you read it before sleeping, but truly perfect! A must have!

A worthy companion, 24 Dec 2005
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

Wonderful, 29 Dec 2001
A wonderful,thorough,accessible book. It covers most great authors and master-pieces, discussing in depth the main concepts of each work. A must-have for all English students!!!

Every book reader needs one., 04 Sep 2001
This is a fantastic guide to almost every book in literary history that you would want to know about. It higlights the main points of great masterpieces, and is very helpful into giving you a greater understanding of the themes that the author is trying to put across. Buy this is you take your reading seriously.

Aging, Longing, and Loving in the Upper-Middle Class, 17 Oct 2007
For some reason I seem lately to have been reading several novels about aging, depressed, and lonely academics or members of the media or arts community--E.g. Shroud, by Banville; Amsterdam by McEwan, and A Foreign Affair by Lurie, among others. The Sea Lady is another and one of the best of this flourishing genre. As in The Sea Lady the protagonists seem always to be highly successful (unlike most of us real aging academics reading or writing amazon reviews), very depressed about their miserable lives (but it's not always clear why and sometimes seems self-indulgent), are divorced or in any case alone and lonely (but many of us real retired academics are still married, with rafts of grand children), and are almost obsessively self-involved (aren't we all? Or perhaps I should just speak for myself here).

The Sea Lady is the compressed life story of several children who meet one or two summers shortly after World War II on the seashore of England near the border with Scotland on the North Sea. Two, Ailsa and Humphrey, meet later in life, fall in love and marry, divorce, etc. Then meet again in their sixties, etc., etc. All the children turn out to be famous or wealthy as adults; all are successful, miserable, lonely, aging or aged now in 2006 (the story is told seamlessly with flashbacks). Drabble is a fine writer with a sensitive simple style that is very similar to Ian McEwan's but without the twisted, dark tones of McEwan. Although nothing happens in the novel, there is no violence, little lurid sex, or anything else of moment, I found it gripping and enjoyable. This is life, a mirror for us aging academics. Even if we're not successful or miserable and lonely there is much in this novel that illuminates and perhaps quiets our own demons.

Some of the things I very much liked about The Sea Lady: Drabble manages to weave a lot of trivia about life in England since WW II into her narrative. This novel evoked England for me better than many others that I've read lately (I'm a confirmed anglophile--I live in New York). Also Drabble uses quotes and snippets from Shakespeare in a creative and charming way that enhances the story. (I'm also a life-long Shakespeare fan.)

I must say that I am amazed by Drabble's talent. I wonder how she can breathe such life, such intensity into her story and characters. I admire and wonder at this talent, this genius. As with other fine writers, I wonder how they can know so much, sense so many things and get them on the page and make them live off the page. This is the first of Drabble's novels that I have read and I came upon it by accident, but I plan to read more of her works. Congratulations!

Disappointed, 04 Oct 2007
I have been a great fan of Margaret Drabble for many years and have read all her other books. I could not wait to read this one. It has proved a huge disappointment; I found it slow and rather turgid . The past was indeed beautifully evoked but it did not seem to ground the intense connections which brought the characters together in the future - rather I was left puzzled as to their emotional motivations. A lovely idea but maybe did not come out in the execution.

A wonderful evocation of childhood, 16 Sep 2007
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman met briefly as children in north-east England. They later meet up as lovers and embark on a short unfortunate marriage. Both have gone on to eke out very different careers. Ailsa has made a name for herself through her academic work on feminism and then through media appearances. She scandalized people by putatively wearing a foetus as a pendant. Humphrey has had a fairly successful career as a marine biologist albeit not without disappointments. At the Green Grotto (in the white elephant at Greenwich) which he had a part in setting up is a robotic mermaid who moves in and out of the water. His embarrassment at this as he escorts his grandson is almost tangible.

Their stories unfold as they travel back to Ornemouth fifty years later to receive honorary doctorates at one of the country's newer universities.

The book is a wonderful evocation of childhood at the seaside as well as the anxieties and uncertainties of ageing. There are constant references to sea life and marine biology (Ailsa's name, her mermaid-like dress, their journey compared to salmon coming home to spawn)

A grown-up book for grown-ups!



A fishy tale from the author of The Ice Age and The Gates Of Ivory, 09 Aug 2007
Margaret Drabble's latest novel chronicles a journey - or rather two journeys which are set to converge, with surprising results. Briefly and unsuccessfully married thirty years before, ageing experts Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark are making separate trips north to a provincial town where they are both to receive honorary degrees. Although they appear to come from quite different worlds - Ailsa the wildly controversial academic and feminist pundit, Humphrey the quietly distinguished marine biologist - they once shared an emotional language which both have now almost forgotten how to speak.

As they make their separate pilgrimages towards the scene of a first idyllic childhood summer, Drabble takes us back through time to revisit each reminiscence and regret, chronicling the progress of the couple's strangely unfulfilled relationship. She is excellent when evoking memory, and every detail - from the "tarry masculine seafaring smell of creosote" to the "heathery blend of colours" on a tweedy aunt's sensible suit - evokes a vanished English world with aching veracity.

Drabble links personality with myth throughout the novel, in almost overwhelming fashion. Sea Lady Ailsa, named after an island in the Firth of Clyde, is first revealed dressed in "silver sequinned scales", and the ageing Humphrey recalls how salmon return to the spawning grounds - "the source" - at the end of their lives. Ailsa's life has been glamorous but ultimately lonely, like that of the animatronic mermaid Humphrey watches mechanically circling a grotto pool in a civic aquarium. There's a lot of Hans Christian Anderson's "Little Mermaid" in Ailsa; despite her strident feminism and varied career, and although she has long since given up the "high knife heels" she once wore, there is still a sense that she is a fish out of water, a beached and crippled mermaid looking for her destiny in an indifferent world.

Humphrey is also a disappointed man, forced to forgo fame by his refusal to compete for funding and recognition at the expense of serious science. The Green Grotto, home of the robotic mermaid, is the all too tangible symbol of his failure; conceived as a research establishment and teaching facility, it's become no more than an expensive tourist sideshow. It's also a fairly obvious sideswipe at the dumbing down of modern science teaching and the great White Elephant of Greenwich.

The slow convergence of these disparate lovers is controlled and overseen by the mysterious "Public Orator", a metafictional narrative device which seems unsatisfactory for most of the novel's length. He makes sense only at the novel's denouement, once he is able to step into the action - though he remains a shadowy and somewhat insubstantial figure to the end. Much more satisfying is the sense we have (the novel is subtitled A Late Romance) that in returning to the source, perhaps the Sea Lady might be about to find her true element at last.

first published at subba-cultcha.com

WHAT A WINNER!, 25 Sep 2006
I really loved this book. I finished reading it a few minutes ago and ran to the computer to write this review so other people could buy the book and enjoy it as I had.
From the beginning with the description of Ailsa's beautiful dress in which 'she appeared to have dressed herself as a mermaid, in silver sequinned scales', you realise that she is a very sensuous woman and later in the book, she delivers another speech which is so brilliantly executed, that you feel the tension of the audience as 'Ailsa, sensing its lowered guard, goes in for the kill.'
The description of that particular speech is masterfully written, so that you are swayed with the movement of the lines, until you hold your breath for the last climactic moment and then want to join the rapturous applause of the audience.
Then we meet Humphrey Clark, travelling by train from King's Cross to the far northern town by the sea, where his childhood had been played out, remembering all the events which took place and worrying about this particular event which he is facing and what its significance might be.
He is a highly intelligent man, who worries and is not independent of others as Ailsa is.
The person referred to as the Public Orator grates a little at first because he seems to be a construct in order to give the book a post-modern, objective slant, but later, we realise that he is another character who is revealed to us, along with the fleeting appearance of the opera singer, Dame Mary McTaggart, a cameo performance which is unforgettable.
This is Margaret Drabble at her best, informing us about things which fascinate her, drawing us into events so that we can feel the atmosphere and we shiver with delight and she reminds us constantly of the short passage of time.
'The journey draws to its end, but it is not over yet.'
But this book, it's wonderful!


Essential Jane Austen., 10 Apr 2002
Our capacity to form first impressions was one that Jane Austen examines in all her fiction. Her characters sometimes are shown to form incorrect impressions. Her characters often strive to give false impressions. None of her fictional characters is as preoccupied with setting up a public image in order to gain her own ends as the Lady Susan who gives this novella its name. Lady Susan is the archetypal coquette, the skilled deceiver. She is Thackeray’s Becky Sharp, fifty years before her time.

Jane Austen plays the game of deception with us too. In this novella, which is almost entirely in epistolary form, we form the impression from reading Lady Susan’s first letter, that she is a grieving widow, devoted to the care and education of her 16 year old daughter, and willing at last to accede to her brother-in-law’s pressing invitation to stay with him and his family. Wrong! We too have been duped, as we soon discover.

Jane Austen first drafted several of her novels in epistolary form, that is to say, in the form of letters exchanged by her characters. This one, which may have been the earliest of all her surviving works, alone remained in this form. And great fun it is, although Lady Susan’s contriving and heartlessness, especially in regard to her daughter, sometimes goes beyond the comic to the cruel.

Naxos has added to the fun that this “entertainement” can provide by issuing the novella in audio book form. Seven actors are allocated the parts of the seven letter writers. Furthermore, there is no abridgement of the text, and there are some snatches of music that serve to provide breaks between the letters and indicate the passing of time. Altogether, an ideal production.

most enjoyable, 31 Jan 2002
I enjoyed the beautiful language and style of this audiobook. Once started it was impossible to stop the CD player. Lady Susan with her manipulative skills is amazing!

A first person account of being, 01 Mar 2008
Rosamund Stacey is the first person narrator of her own story in the Millstone by Margaret Drabble. Rosamund is a single mother - nothing strange about that, perhaps, at least in a twenty-first century Britain where now half of births are outside of marriage. But in the early 1960s, when The Millstone was written, unmarried mothers were not so common and it was a status to which considerable stigma was attached.

Consequently, when Rosamund visits hospital for her regular check-ups, she is summoned from the waiting room with a call of Mrs. Stacey in an attempt to maintain the privacy of her status. She longs for the day - and not too distant - when her thesis on Elizabethan poetry will be complete and she can prefix her name with Dr., thereby avoiding the deception.

The Millstone is written in Margaret Drabble's conversational, yet dense style. The characters are highly complex and seem to live their lives with a devotion to intricacy. Not much happens to them, however, and events are few and far between. Rosamund's life is a case in point. It was Cambridge, of course, followed by the relative comfort of a flat in central London, an apartment provided by her parents calculatedly close to the British Museum, where she does most of her research. She is definitely not the run-of-the-mill young lass who attends university nowadays, our Rosamund. She has a boyfriend at college, of course, but they never sleep together, not even on the occasion they jointly plan to accomplish the act.

Rosamund is not really into sex, she thinks. She has a tendency to see herself as an object from without, and her observation of the absurdity of various aspects of being human lead her to a life slightly removed from reality, lived apparently at arm's length from experience. Though she sees quite a lot of Joe and Roger - both quite different but eligible males - the idea of anything other than a chat and a drink appals her. Each of the two men, of course, think that the other is the boyfriend and so are loath to raise the subject.

Then, for some reason hardly known to herself, she takes up with George, a gay radio presenter, and sleeps with him. Just once. And yes, Rosamund is definitively pregnant. As ever, she cannot decide what to do and, even when she eventually plans her course, she is blown off onto a different tack. She has read that drinking a bottle of gin in a hot bath might do the trick. She sets an evening aside. And then, just as the bottle is opened, friends turn up, she offers them a drink and they share the otherwise-ntended gin between them.

Rosamund is thus never really in control, despite appearing to have a strangle hold on her life. Circumstances always seem to conspire to prevent her getting precisely what she wants. But this is eventually seen as an illusion. Perhaps she does get precisely what she wants, but does not tell us, or herself.

And so Octavia is born. The baby is a life that Rosamund contemplated ending, but when the child is ill, the thought of her coming to harm is too painful to admit. A friend, Lydia, moves in, shares the costs and sets about writing a novel. When this is complete, an unsupervised Octavia tears much of it up, though perhaps not disastrously. Rosamund reminds us that babies are persistent, not thorough, so most of the pages are preserved. It becomes the mother's trauma, however.

Rosamund could be described as measured, always apparently in control, yet always feeling she is swept along with the tide. Passionate she is not. When George, who still does not know he is Octavia's father, says she might do well with a husband, Rosamund agrees, but only because it would be nice to have someone who could help to fill in the tax return. George is no better, since for his the purpose of marriage seems to be to provide someone to iron his shirts. It's all terribly British.

But the characters are beautifully drawn, expertly pitched against themselves and their relationships. The Millstone, thus, explores motivation and achievement, and the relationship between selfishness and selflessness. In the end, we are who we are.


Lucky in work, unlucky in love, 04 Jan 2006
This moving short novel portraits the rude awakening of a young woman, who after making love with a 'silly bugger' becomes an unmarried mother.

The dreams of youth, 'I used to be so good-natured. I used to see the best in every-one', becomes 'my growing selfishness, this was probably maturity.' 'Life would never be a simple question of self-denial again.'

There is also the chasm between the education's view of mankind and the facts of real life.
Education was the cause of 'my inability to see anything in human terms of like and dislike, love and hate, but only in terms of justice, guilt and innocence', and 'the endurance of privation is a virtue.'
However as an adult, she is confronted with 'resentments breed so near the craddle, that people should have it from birth'; 'facts of inequality, of the heart-breaking uneven hardship of the human lot. These things were as nothing compared with the bond that bind parent and child'.
As another woman in the novel says: 'I haven't the energy to go worrying about other people's children. I only have enough time to worry about myself. If I didn't put myself and mine first, they wouldn't survive.'

And finally, there is the unbearable burden of Victorian religion: 'the thought of sex freightened the life out of me.' 'If Octavia were to die, this would be a vengeance upon my sin.'

In naturally flowing prose, Margaret Drabble paints a most human portrait of innocence and struggle for (emotional) survival, youth and adulthood and the mighty marks of religion (guilt) and 'unselfish' education.

A masterly written short novel.

A review: Margaret Drabble's 'Millstone', 25 Apr 2004
Drabble's 'Millstone' is very well written and thoughtful yet a fairlyeasy read. Evocative of the London literary milieu of the 1960s, itfocuses on the discovery of identity and independence through a developingmother-child relationship. The protagonist's eloquent soul searchingmingles with an account of the more mundane side to motherhood. Interesting for those concerned with women's issues, the development offeminism and socialism, and the relationship of the classes. Perhaps thenovel's only fault is a slightly unbelievable main character. Anenjoyable and engaging read overall.

Readable, if dated, 16 Oct 2001
This is very much a book of the place and times (England, mid 60s). An intellectual, rather naive young woman gets pregnant at a time when unmarried mothers were very much frowned upon, and keeps the baby. (Hence the title.) Nevertheless the book is an insight into the times, is very well written, never drags, and captures all the characters just perfectly.

Intellectual girl facing reality of life, 13 Aug 2000
This is a touching story, one snapshot of an unusual woman's life written nicely, wittingly and intellectually. Facing the unpleasantry of reailty since having the baby (such as having to ask somebody something not because of herself but because of her baby), she seems to be learning a lot of things. I don't particularly like the fact that she's so ill-prepared for having a baby, but still she's all right and has the consious, loving personality. The whole naration from beginning to the end really fascinated me. Drabble's later books seem to become richier with more characters and more incidents (I guess that's what most writers head for as they become better writers), but I like The Millstone for its simplicity and narrow setting.

EXCELLENT., 02 Nov 2007
I read this book for the first time when I was eighteen and it seemed to speak to me when I was also a young girl.
The insecurity which young people suffer and the concomitant lack of confidence is all there in Sarah and it is exacerbated by the beauty and brilliance of her cool, confident sister, Louise.
They seem to have little in common and as Sarah goes to her sister's wedding, she feels the difference between them acutely.
But after a short time, she becomes aware that all is not how she imagined it and she is able to feel the difference between what she imagined to be Louise's 'perfect' life and the reality.
Margaret Drabble has been able to portray a rivalry but also a love between the two girls brilliantly.
Whether this is based on her feelings for her sister, A S Byatt or not, is not relevant to the story but she certainly has achieved a strong sense of character and her descriptions of people in this her first novel, are superb.
Buy this and read it first before you read any of Drabble's other, also excellent books.

Beautifully written, witty, entertaining, 18 Apr 2001
Bright, attractive Sarah has recently graduated from Oxford and is flat-sharing in London, wondering what to do next. She has always felt inferior to her stunning, enigmatic sister Louise, who has just married a wealthy, unlikeable writer. But her fascination and dislike for Louise changes shape as she finds out what lies under the exquisite surface. This is Margaret Drabble's gorgeous first novel, a witty, spirited read - lots of fast, intellectual conversation & interesting social observation. I found myself stopping every few pages, literally breathless with admiration. Buy it!

excellent reference material, 30 Mar 2007
i found this book extremely useful when I need to get a brief synopsis of some literature or writer, not only does it tell the story but it also offers a brief analysis. It is also useful if you need to quickly refresh your memory of some literature or if you need to compare some works. a bit heavy to carry around but for home study you couldn't wish for more.

every English student must have it!, 12 Feb 2006
I study English literature in Milan and this book is simply fundamental! There you can find many authors, plot descriptions, literary currents, ideas, criticism...
It is just a bit heavy if you read it before sleeping, but truly perfect! A must have!

A worthy companion, 24 Dec 2005
The first 'Oxford Companion to English Literature' was published in 1932 under the editorial direction of Sir Paul Harvey (no relation the American radio commentator). Half a century and five editions later, this is still a standard, authoritative reference work necessary for scholars and interested non-experts alike.

Under the editorship of Margaret Drabble, author and biographer (known for 'The Witch of Exmoor' and the more recently published 'The Peppered Moth'), this volume remains faithful to Harvey's intention of placing English literature in its widest possible context while exploring the deep classical and continental connections that underpin much of the history.

How can literature be divorced from cultural context? Surely it cannot be -- hence the newest entries into the edition include topics that read as if they were taken from today's best-seller shelf:

- Anglo-Indian Literature
- Simon Armitage
- Kate Atkinson
- Louis de Bernieres
- Censorship

- Ben Elton
- Gay and lesbian literature
- Hypertext
- A. L. Kennedy
- Lad's literature
- Literature of science
- New Criticism
- New Irish Playwrights
- Carol Shields
- Travel writing

This sample listing of the latest entries is representative of the more established categories, in that the entries (encyclopedic in character) include Authors, Subjects, Titles, Events, Characters and Critical Theory. The entries are unsigned (an ever-controversial practice in reference works such as this) -- well over a hundred contributors assisted in this volume, including the likes of Matthew Sweet, Salman Rushdie, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, Katherine Duncan-Jones, and Brian Vickers.

This volume serves the general reader well in that one may follow cross-reference trails through the text. Take, for instance, Aaron the Moor -- the reader will be directed to Titus Andronicus, to which one is directed to Shakespeare, and from there a host of other cross-references historical and modern. Under the entry of Gabriel Josipovici, one is led back the entries of Rabelais and Bellow, influences as well as objects of Josipovici's study.

The appendices are new features of this edition. The first appendix is a Chronology that lists the chronology of the production of English literature from c.1000 to 1999 side by side with major historical events in Britain and beyond, and the significant events in the lives of literary figures. Appendix 2 lists the Poets Laureate in chronological order, from 1619 (when the office unofficially began) to the present -- surprisingly, there have only been 21 (19 official). Appendix 3 lists major literary award winners: Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Library Association Carnegie Medalists, and Booker-McConnell Prize for Fiction. Obviously not all of these are British authors, but it helps to place British literature in the wider world context of the twentieth century (as all of these prizes are twentieth-century creations).

In addition to the encyclopedic entries, there are major essays scattered through the text. These include the following topics:

- Biography
- Black British Literature
- Children's Literature
- Detective Fiction
- Fantasy Fiction
- Ghost Stories
- Gothic Fiction
- Historical Fiction
- Metre
- Modernism
- Post-Colonial Literature
- Romanticism
- Science Fiction
- Spy Fiction
- Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

These essays include history and current development of the genre or topic, as well as bibliographic information for further research, which (regrettably) the smaller encyclopedic entries rarely have.

This is a terrific, one-volume reference that should serve well anyone with a need for quick and ready reference material. It should find a welcome home on the shelf of any avid reader, fan of literature and modern fiction, history, religion, or any devoted Anglophile.

Wonderful, 29 Dec 2001
A wonderful,thorough,accessible book. It covers most great authors and master-pieces, discussing in depth the main concepts of each work. A must-have for all English students!!!

Every book reader needs one., 04 Sep 2001
This is a fantastic guide to almost every book in literary history that you would want to know about. It higlights the main points of great masterpieces, and is very helpful into giving you a greater understanding of the themes that the author is trying to put across. Buy this is you take your reading seriously.

Aging, Longing, and Loving in the Upper-Middle Class, 17 Oct 2007
For some reason I seem lately to have been reading several novels about aging, depressed, and lonely academics or members of the media or arts community--E.g. Shroud, by Banville; Amsterdam by McEwan, and A Foreign Affair by Lurie, among others. The Sea Lady is another and one of the best of this flourishing genre. As in The Sea Lady the protagonists seem always to be highly successful (unlike most of us real aging academics reading or writing amazon reviews), very depressed about their miserable lives (but it's not always clear why and sometimes seems self-indulgent), are divorced or in any case alone and lonely (but many of us real retired academics are still married, with rafts of grand children), and are almost obsessively self-involved (aren't we all? Or perhaps I should just speak for myself here).

The Sea Lady is the compressed life story of several children who meet one or two summers shortly after World War II on the seashore of England near the border with Scotland on the North Sea. Two, Ailsa and Humphrey, meet later in life, fall in love and marry, divorce, etc. Then meet again in their sixties, etc., etc. All the children turn out to be famous or wealthy as adults; all are successful, miserable, lonely, aging or aged now in 2006 (the story is told seamlessly with flashbacks). Drabble is a fine writer with a sensitive simple style that is very similar to Ian McEwan's but without the twisted, dark tones of McEwan. Although nothing happens in the novel, there is no violence, little lurid sex, or anything else of moment, I found it gripping and enjoyable. This is life, a mirror for us aging academics. Even if we're not successful or miserable and lonely there is much in this novel that illuminates and perhaps quiets our own demons.

Some of the things I very much liked about The Sea Lady: Drabble manages to weave a lot of trivia about life in England since WW II into her narrative. This novel evoked England for me better than many others that I've read lately (I'm a confirmed anglophile--I live in New York). Also Drabble uses quotes and snippets from Shakespeare in a creative and charming way that enhances the story. (I'm also a life-long Shakespeare fan.)

I must say that I am amazed by Drabble's talent. I wonder how she can breathe such life, such intensity into her story and characters. I admire and wonder at this talent, this genius. As with other fine writers, I wonder how they can know so much, sense so many things and get them on the page and make them live off the page. This is the first of Drabble's novels that I have read and I came upon it by accident, but I plan to read more of her works. Congratulations!

Disappointed, 04 Oct 2007
I have been a great fan of Margaret Drabble for many years and have read all her other books. I could not wait to read this one. It has proved a huge disappointment; I found it slow and rather turgid . The past was indeed beautifully evoked but it did not seem to ground the intense connections which brought the characters together in the future - rather I was left puzzled as to their emotional motivations. A lovely idea but maybe did not come out in the execution.

A wonderful evocation of childhood, 16 Sep 2007
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman met briefly as children in north-east England. They later meet up as lovers and embark on a short unfortunate marriage. Both have gone on to eke out very different careers. Ailsa has made a name for herself through her academic work on feminism and then through media appearances. She scandalized people by putatively wearing a foetus as a pendant. Humphrey has had a fairly successful career as a marine biologist albeit not without disappointments. At the Green Grotto (in the white elephant at Greenwich) which he had a part in setting up is a robotic mermaid who moves in and out of the water. His embarrassment at this as he escorts his grandson is almost tangible.

Their stories unfold as they travel back to Ornemouth fifty years later to receive honorary doctorates at one of the country's newer universities.

The book is a wonderful evocation of childhood at the seaside as well as the anxieties and uncertainties of ageing. There are constant references to sea life and marine biology (Ailsa's name, her mermaid-like dress, their journey compared to salmon coming home to spawn)

A grown-up book for grown-ups!



A fishy tale from the author of The Ice Age and The Gates Of Ivory, 09 Aug 2007
Margaret Drabble's latest novel chronicles a journey - or rather two journeys which are set to converge, with surprising results. Briefly and unsuccessfully married thirty years before, ageing experts Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark are making separate trips north to a provincial town where they are both to receive honorary degrees. Although they appear to come from quite different worlds - Ailsa the wildly controversial academic and feminist pundit, Humphrey the quietly distinguished marine biologist - they once shared an emotional language which both have now almost forgotten how to speak.

As they make their separate pilgrimages towards the scene of a first idyllic childhood summer, Drabble takes us back through time to revisit each reminiscence and regret, chronicling the progress of the couple's strangely unfulfilled relationship. She is excellent when evoking memory, and every detail - from the "tarry masculine seafaring smell of creosote" to the "heathery blend of colours" on a tweedy au