 First edition | |
| Author | Christina Stead |
|---|---|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | 1976 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 308pp |
| ISBN | 039440517X |
| Preceded by | The Little Hotel |
| Followed by | I'm Dying Laughing: The Humourist |
Miss Herbert (The Suburban Wife) (1976) is a novel by Australian writer Christina Stead.
The novel follows the life of Eleanor Herbert Brent, a recent university graduate, living in London and engaged to be married. Over the next few years she breaks her engagement, embarks on affair with a man she meets on a boat, leaves him, becomes engaged again, and then breaks off that engagement as well. She finally marries and has children but finds herself alone when her husband departs. She finds some success on the fringes of the literary world yet never really comes to know herself.
Helen Yglesias in The New York Times found that this "is a supremely English novel, infused with the troubled, cocky and half‐defeated spirit of contemporary England. George Orwell might have written such a book, if women interested him, which they didn't, and if his style was not so flat out." And concludes "A wonderful book. The life story of a British beauty is a metaphor for England in its present hour." [1]
Encyclopedia of the Novel notes that the novel "observes Miss Herbert's career in close details without offering judgment on the corruption and vapidity of her existence. The reader must deduce these from both the abundance of sordid detail and Miss Herbert's incomprehensible lack of historical awareness." [2]
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, which was performed in the West End from 1952 to 2020, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne as they come of age. They have an older half-brother, John, and a younger sister, Margaret.
A Passage to India is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern Library and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Time magazine included the novel in its "All Time 100 Novels" list. The novel is based on Forster's experiences in India, deriving the title from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem "Passage to India" in Leaves of Grass.
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Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1976 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed for £3.50 and the US edition for $7.95.
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Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. Howards End is considered by many to be Forster's masterpiece. The book was conceived in June 1908 and worked on throughout the following year; it was completed in July 1910.
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Austenland is a 2007 chick lit novel by Shannon Hale, published by Bloomsbury. It follows protagonist Jane Hayes, a graphic designer living in New York City who is secretly obsessed with Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, specifically Colin Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation. Her aunt dies and, in her will, leaves Jane a trip to an Austen theme park in the English countryside, where customers and actors role play as characters in the Regency era. The novel is the first in Hale's Austenland series, followed by Midnight in Austenland. A film based on the first novel was released in 2013, starring Keri Russell and directed by Jerusha Hess.
Fräulein is a 1958 romance film starring Dana Wynter and Mel Ferrer as two people caught up in World War II and the aftermath. It was also released as Fraulein.
Helen Bassine Yglesias was an American novelist.
The Celebrity (1897) is the first novel that was published by American author Winston Churchill. It was a minor bestseller of 1898.
Nice Girl? is a 1941 American musical film directed by William A. Seiter, and starring Deanna Durbin, Franchot Tone, Walter Brennan, Robert Stack, and Robert Benchley. Based on the play Nice Girl? by Phyllis Duganne, the film is about a young girl who finds herself attracted to one of her father's business partners who comes to town to give her father a scholarship for his dietary studies.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009) is a parody novel by Ben H. Winters, with Jane Austen credited as co-author. It is a mashup story containing elements from Jane Austen's 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility and common tropes from sea monster stories. It is the thematic sequel to another 2009 novel from the same publisher called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was first published by Quirk Books on September 15, 2009.
Stranger with My Face is a young adult horror novel by Lois Duncan, first published in 1981. The novel is about Laurie Stratton, who is seen by others in places she knows she could not be. She discovers that she has an identical sister named Lia who has been visiting her town using astral projection, which involves sending her soul outside her body. Laurie learns astral projection and uses it to look for her sister. During this time, Lia's spirit takes control of Laurie's body. The story describes Laurie's struggle to take back control of her body. The novel explores themes of appearance versus true self and the idea of a double, someone similar but not quite the same as someone else. Duncan got the idea for the book after hearing about the concept of astral projection, which she thought would make a great plot for a novel. In 2011, the novel was updated with text to modernize the content.
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