Author: Dorothy Edwards
Year: 1928
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ISBNs:
9780140161304
9781906784294
0140161309
1906784299 |
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"He was oppressed with a feeling of uncertainty. He could see vividly Olivia's dark eyes looking up at him, only now in the cold daylight he could not be sure what it was they urged him to do"
Mr Arnold Nettle, a shy young telegraph clerk, arrives in a secluded English village as summer ends. Through the post-office window he sees a beautiful woman, Olivia, walk past and her appearance seems to herald a new hope for his life. Then her confident, secure family invite him to their home to play his cello and gently, inevitably, he finds himself falling in love. But with the slow approach of spring we see Mr Nettle's fragile hopes, just as gently fade away. First published in 1928, this, Dorothy Edwards only novel, musically interweaves her major theme - the loneliness of the human condition - with a subtle look at its consequences. Atmospheric, it is, as David Garnett said, "a precise and perfect work of art".
Dorothy Edwards (1903-1934), born in Glamorgan, Wales, was an ardent Welsh nationalist. Although her work was acclaimed by contemporary critics including Leonard Woolf, Gerald Brenan and Raymond Mortimer, it sank into oblivion following her tragic suicide at the age of thirty-one
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