Book description
Rich and slim, the celebrated author Nancy Hawkins takes us in hand and leads us back to her threadbare years in postwar London, where she spends her days working for a mad, near-bankrupt publisher ("of very good books") and her nights dispensing advice at her small South Kensington rooming house.…
Why read it?
1 author picked A Far Cry from Kensington as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Muriel Spark is one of the wittiest novelists of the twentieth century, and this is one of her rare forays into historical fiction.
This novel harkens back to the publishing world of 1950s London, where a war widow working as an editor at a struggling publishing house becomes involved in the personal and professional politics of the literary world.
The characters are thinly veiled portrayals of real-life figures in the London publishing scene of the time, and Spark sends up their foibles, petty schemes, and peccadillos to devastating effect.
From Mark's list on The best witty historical novels.
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