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Lanterns across the snow
An old lady looks back at a magical childhood Christmas when she was growing up in an Edwardian country Rectory.
Special edition cloth bound in regal purple and presented in a scarlet slipcase. With wood engravings by JOhn Lawrence. £15
The Glass angels
New edition of this favourite first published in 1990 and set in an English seaside town just after the war, about a Christmas that nearly goes horribly wrong and an old lady who gives Tilly a beautiful ornament to keep for life - The Glass Angels. 5.99
Illustrated in line by Valerie Littlewood.
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Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on my shelves, I encountered dozens of others that I had never read, or forgotten I owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired me to embark on a year-long voyage through my books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know my own collection again. A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, my eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in my home, neglected for years. Howard’s End is on the Landing charts the journey as I revisit the conversations, libraries and bookshelves of the past that have informed a lifetime of reading and writing. |
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Introduction
THE MAGIC APPLE TREE. A COUNTRY YEAR was first published 25 years ago by Hamish Hamilton. It sold over 35,000 copies in hardback, was a Penguin paperback, and when the rights reverted in 1998, became a special edition from Long Barn Books. It was cloth bound with gold-
blocking, in slip case, at £25 and I sold 13,000 copies.
It describes one year in an Oxfordshire village – a real one, to which Susan and her family moved in 1980, blended with ingredients from other country villages she had known.
It is a year in the countryside, the garden, the kitchen, the life of the village.
With beautiful wood engravings by John Lawrence, it had a 60 minute TV programme devoted to it in BBC Omnibus, from which it never looked back. Over the years, it has become so many people`s favourite book, their comfort book, their book to give as a special present, their book in times of need.
I have signed copies for Golden Weddings, for Retirements, for people abroad and longing for home, for new babies and new grand-children and god-children.
It seems to have touched a very great many people.
I have been asked and asked for a reprint ever since the limited edition went OP and it seemed a good idea to do it in the 25th anniversary.’
A keenly priced edition, facsimile of the original and with the same Samuel Palmer painting from which the book takes its title, on the cover.
A new edition for a new generation and replacement for many lost or worn-out favourite copies.
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The chilling tale of a painting so terrifying, its secrets will haunt those who see it. It is set in Cambridge, in a remote country house in the North of England, in London, and in that most ghostly of all cities, Venice, at Carnival time when the people wear masks which disguise and conceal in a sinister way and the man in the picture comes to life.
Published by Profile Books. Hardback 2007 Paperback 2008 7.99 |
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An inveterate traveller, Sir James Monmouth has spent most of his life abroad. He arrives in England on a dark and rainy night with the intention of discovering more, not only about himself but his obsession with Conrad Vane, an explorer. Warned against following his trail, Sir James experiences some extraordinary happenings - who is the mysterious, sad little boy, and the old woman behind the curtain? And why is it that only he hears the chilling scream and the desperate sobbing?
This was my second full length ghost story and a joy to write because I used to many of my favourite settings.. Edwardian London, the river Thames, the old docks, an English country house, the North Yorkshire moors. It also has some of my favourites of my own eccentric characters. I can`t often trace influences on my own books but there’s no doubt that Dickens is in here somewhere.
First Published in hardback by Hamish Hamilton 1992. (OP) In paperback by Vintage . New edition 2008 7.99 |
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Other Books
