Kirjahaku

The moving exploration of a young boy's loss of innocence'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there...'When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation. The haunting story of a young boy's awakening into the secrets of the adult world, The Go-Between is also an unforgettable evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society. It was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates.Edited with an introduction and notes by Douglas Brooks-Davies'Magical and disturbing'Independent'On a first reading, it is a beautifully wrought description of a small boy's loss of innocence long ago. But, visited a second time, the knowledge of approaching, unavoidable tragedy makes it far more poignant and painful'Express

'You'll never be happy until you can think and feel and look like other people . . .' Jael 97 is an Alpha. Deemed over-privileged for her beauty, she is compelled to report to the Ministry of Facial Justice, where her face will be reconstructed. For Jael lives in the New State, created out of the devastation of the Third World War. Under the rule of the Darling Dictator, citizens must wear sackcloth and ashes, and only a 17.5% quotum of personality is permitted to each. Anything that inspires envy is forbidden.But Jael cannot suppress her rebellious spirit. Secretly, she starts to reassert the rights of the individual, and decides to hunt down the faceless Dictator.'An exquisitely entertaining fantasy' Observer

The three books gathered together as Eustace and Hilda explore a brother and sister's lifelong relationship. Hilda, the older child, is both self-sacrificing and domineering, as puritanical as she is gorgeous; Eustace is a gentle, dreamy, pleasure-loving boy: the two siblings could hardly be more different, but they are also deeply devoted. And yet as Eustace and Hilda grow up and seek to go their separate ways in a world of power and position, money and love, their relationship is marked by increasing pain. L. P. Hartley's much-loved novel, the magnum opus of one of twentieth-century England's best writers, is a complex and spellbinding work: a comedy of upper-class manners; a study in the subtlest nuances of feeling; a poignant reckoning with the ironies of character and fate. Above all, it is about two people who cannot live together or apart, about the ties that bind--and break.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years. The inspiration for the brilliant Joseph Losey/Harold Pinter film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, The Go-Between is a masterpiece--a richly layered, spellbinding story about past and present, naivet and knowledge, and the mysteries of the human heart. This volume includes, for the first time ever in North America, Hartley's own introduction to the novel.

Overcome with grief at her husband's death, Lady Franklin, an eligible young widow, unburdens herself to Leadbitter - a gallant, hard-bitten ex-soldier who has invested his savings in the car he drives for hire - as he takes her on a series of journeys. He in turn beguiles her with stories of his non-existent wife and children, drawing her out of her self-absorption and weaving a dream-life with Lady Franklin at its heart. Half-hoping to make his dream come true, Leadbitter takes a bold, not to say reckless, step which costs him dearly, and brings these characters' tangled story to a dramatic and unexpected conclusion.

'A masterpiece' Anita Brookner'A very beautiful novel' Nick Hornby'Includes some of the most perfect sentences in English' GuardianAt the turn of the twentieth century, two children play on an English beach. Eustace, a gentle, dreamy, boy with a weak heart, relies on his older sister Hilda.As young adults, Eustace and Hilda are unexpectedly invited to stay at the grand country house of the wealthy Staveley family. The weekend's events will haunt the siblings' lives as their story travels from Oxford colleges to Venetian palazzi.The magnum opus from the author of The Go-Between, this is an enchanting, tender exploration of two siblings who cannot live together or apart.With an introduction by Anita Brookner

World-renowned cartoonist Seth returns with three new ghost stories for 2024.When a group of tourists visits the deserted island of Podolo, one wants to rescue a feral cat they find there, and the others reluctantly agree. Unfortunately, the rescue proves more difficult than they expect—and they soon discover they’re not alone on Podolo.

A lonely boy living on his uncle's farm in the Lincolnshire Fens, Richard Mardick's solitary existence is interrupted by a chance meeting, and idyllic love affair, with Lucy. A disused brickfield is the scene of their clandestine meetings, and it is there that Richard finds her drowned in a muddy pool.Forced by circumstances to look back on these days, Richard finds himself recounting this episode to his secretary. Its shattering significance throughout the rest of his life is put into remarkable perspective by the unusual framework with which Hartley has enclosed his story.Weaving skilfully through past events while staying awake to the present, The Brickfield is a masterly evocation of childhood and its influences on the adult mind.

Timothy Casson, a bachelor writer, is forced to return from a contented life in Venice to an English village. Taking a house by the river where he can pursue his passion for rowing, he has to do battle with the locals to overcome his isolation and feelings of incompleteness. This most complex of Hartley's novels examines the multiple layers of Casson's relationships with servants, local society and friends.

Chartered accountant Harold Eastwood, conventionally minded, chances to meet Alec Goodrich on the train, travelling first-class with a third-class ticket. Alec is a best-selling novelist. He soon finds Harold's knowledge of income tax allowances useful and when Alec pays a visit to the accountant his wife, Isabel, who yearns for culture and literature, quickly takes up the fantasy to be his mistress. However, not she but Irma, the Austrian barmaid at the tavern, has caught Alec's wayward fancy . . .

In The Betrayal, the sequel to The Brickfield, Richard Mardick, now an ageing novelist, is forced by circumstances to look back on the days of his boyhood and confesses to Denys Aspin, his young secretary and biographer-to-be, how Lucy's death has forever marred his life and distorted his inner peace. The consequences of this rash disclosure range from threats and blackmail to the entirely unpredictable reactions of Richard's friends.

Margaret Pennefather is essentially a good person - too good, perhaps, for her own good. Her rash and hasty marriage to film star Colum McInnes, and his very different set of moral values, leads gradually and relentlessly to the utter destruction of their love and their marriage. Although she is only a nominal Protestant and he a very lax Roman Catholic, Margaret cannot escape the religious questionings implicit in their union. Her mental and spiritual struggles persist and gather momentum through all the disasters of her married life. Its outcome is the climax to a story that must surely rank as one of the most impressive L. P. Hartley has given us.

World War III left the world in ruins, but now a new society has sprung up from the ashes, ruled by an unseen dictator who believes a system of strict equality is the best way to prevent future strife. Too much beauty, intelligence, or personality is severely frowned upon. Those who run afoul of the Dictator are punished, sometimes with death and sometimes with a more mysterious and terrible fate, being "emptied".Jael 97 is an Alpha, whose beauty makes her a target for the Ministry of Facial Justice, where she is expected to submit to having her face altered into a plain, standardized Beta face. But Jael's rebellious spirit refuses to submit to the Dictator's demands. Instead she rises up against his tyranny and decides to hunt him down ...Cited by Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange) as one of the best modern English novels, Facial Justice (1960) is an unusual dystopian tale that deserves consideration alongside the works of Orwell and Huxley. This reissue makes L. P. Hartley's classic available to American readers for the first time in over fifty years."An exquisitely entertaining fantasy." - The Observer"Every bit as horrifying as] George Orwell and Aldous Huxley . . . The book is compelling and Mr. Hartley writes with power and distinction." - Sydney Morning Herald