Margaret Kennedy

The Oracles was the twelfth novel published by Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) and its titular subjects are the members of a group of provincial intellectuals who happen upon what seems to them a piece of stunningly advanced modern sculpture. Possibly they are not to be blamed for failing to see that it is, in fact, only a commonplace garden chair that has been struck by lightning and twisted radically out of shape. However, under a delusion, The Oracles endeavour to force their fellow townsmen to purchase the work with public money. This comedy of suspense, tension and confusion presents yet another splendid demonstration of Margaret Kennedys remarkable storytelling gift.

Cornouailles, 1947. Comme tous les étés, le révérend Seddon rend visite au père Bott. Hélas, son ami n’a pas de temps à lui accorder cette année, car il doit écrire une oraison funèbre : l’hôtel de P

Lorsque Betsy Canning, à trente-sept ans, constate que malgré sa richesse, sa confortable maison à Londres, sa maison de vacances au pays de Galles et ses trois beaux enfants, le bonheur lui échappe,

La festa és un llibre de misteri clàssic summament original que reuneix tots els elements del gènere en una faula obscura i enginyosa inspirada en els Set Pecats Capitals, i que recorda a les millors

A few stones still lie in the heather at a crossroads on the long southern slopes of Exmoor. They are all that is left of a hut which once stood there, offering shelter for poor people on the roads.Old Lucy Squires made use of it twice a year, when she took one of her mysterious walks from Abbotsbury, on the Dorset coast, to Minehead, on the Bristol Channel. She had a tryst there with a man who was called Jemmy the Finger, since he had six fingers on his left hand. He earned halfpence for showing it at fairs, where he wore a red mitten to conceal it. In the hut he omitted this precaution: trampers and the Poor People, as the gypsies called themselves, might see it for nothing.

May Turner was a retired school teacher. For forty years she had lived and laboured in a smoky industrial town. In old age she betook herself to the village of Upcott, near Beremouth, where she shared a cottage with her friend, Alice Budden. They kept bees, made themselves useful at the Village Institute, and won medals for the best cottage garden in the district.Busy with her spray or secateurs, May pretended not to hear the admiring comments of passers-by. But they pleased her, all the same. It was agreeable to be praised for something, and her life work had been taken entirely for granted. Her children were now scattered all over the world; if any of them had turned into prize blooms, no medals had ever been pinned upon Mays neat shirt waist. She was now merely remembered as a vague, reassuring figure with a sharp nose and a brisk manner, who had presided over their infancy. Flowers were more rewarding.

In September, 1947, the Reverend Gerald Seddon, of St. Frideswide, Hoxton, paid his annual visit to the Reverend Samuel Bott, of St. Sody, North Cornwall.They are old friends and this holiday together is the greatest pleasure they know. For Mr. Bott, though he cannot afford to go away, allows himself a kind of vacation while Mr. Seddon is staying with him. He exchanges the cassock, in which he is at all other times to be seen, for a pair of old flannel trousers and a pullover, and he goes for bird watching expeditions along the cliffs. In the evening they play chess. Both are in the late fifties, Anglo-Catholic, celibate, and disconcertingly sincere. They like to be called Father by their parishioners, but they do not enjoy skirmishes with Protestants as much as they did when they were young. Father Bott is grey, stocky, and hirsute; he looks rather like a Scotch terrier and he is not popular in the parish of St. Sody. Father Seddon has the dew-lapped melancholy of a bloodhound; his life is harder and more unpleasant, but his parishioners appreciate him.

La ninfa constante tiene como protagonista a los Sanger, una compleja familia a cuyo frente está un padre músico y compositor, completamente embebido en su propia obra y partidario de una educación antiautoritaria. Su muerte provocara el choque de su descendencia con las normas sociales. Esta fue una novela rompedora y muy popular, cuando se publico en 1926. De hecho, fue uno de los mayores best-sellers del siglo. De ella se han hechos versiones teatrales y cinematograficas asi como incontables traducciones. Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) se inscribe en la gran tradicion britanica de las sagas en que la mujer tiene un rol predominante, y que tuvieron su edad dorada con los novelistas mayores del siglo XIX. Esta novela le dio el renombre universal.

Au lendemain d’un violent orage, la petite ville de Summersdown, sur le canal de Bristol, semble avoir dévié de son axe. À commencer par la banale chaise de jardin qui, frappée par la foudre et dislo

This summery rediscovered gem will make you nostalgic for 1940s seaside holidays: a Cornish hotel is mysteriously buried by a landslide, but what bought its eccentric guests together?'Tense, touching, human, dire, and funny, The Feast is a feast indeed.' Elizabeth Bowen Cornwall, Midsummer 1947.

Lorsque Betsy Canning, à trente-sept ans, constate que malgré sa richesse, sa confortable maison à Londres, sa maison de vacances au pays de Galles et ses trois beaux enfants, le bonheur lui échappe,

Rebuscando entre papeles para entretenerse durante una convalecencia, un caballero victoriano da con las memorias de un olvidado personaje de la época de la Regencia, que fue amigo de un antepasado suyo. Este personaje, modesto hijo de un clerigo que llego a ser parlamentario y ejercer cargos politicos, presenta la peculiaridad de tener una identidad desdoblada. Por un lado esta Miles Lufton, amante de la vida familiar, convencido de que la sociedad debe contribuir a la felicidad, defensor de los indefensos y capaz de pasar una hora entera escuchando a un ruiseñor. Por otro, un tipo a quien llaman Pronto, un arribista que solo piensa en su ascenso social, que cree que las emociones son un poquitin vulgares pero que sabe como despertar en su provecho el sentimentalismo de la alta sociedad: hace por ejemplo cumplidos antes del desayuno. Sin embargo, ¿hasta que punto son distintos Miles y Pronto? ¿Tal vez uno es la coartada del otro? En cualquier caso, este ser dual vive, progresa y se desencanta en un mundo que es el de las novelas de Jane Austen casas parroquiales, grandes fincas campestres, modestas viviendas de arrendatarios, ricos salones de Londres y tambien el de sus personajes: terratenientes ociosos, damas crueles, amigos leales, astutas consejeras y parientes pobres que anhelan una vida independiente. Ahi conocera el amor y la decepcion. "Troy Chimneys" (1953) es una novela originalisima en la que Margaret Kennedy consigue introducir con inteligencia una mentalidad contemporanea en un pasado en el que, no menos que en el presente, el triunfo se mide a costa de los deseos mas intimos.

La festa és un llibre de misteri clàssic summament original que reuneix tots els elements del gènere en una faula obscura i enginyosa inspirada en els Set Pecats Capitals, i que recorda a les millors

Rediscover the brilliance of Lucy Carmichael in the Mermaid Collection timeless classics by pioneering female authors, beautifully reissued to enchant todays readers.Originally published in 1951 from the author of beloved holiday classic The Feast comes a glorious coming-of-age tale about a heroine whose wedding day does not go entirely to plan . . . With a foreword by Lucy Mangan ***People seem to get over things, dont they? I dont know how, but they do ordinary people. Im very ordinary, so I expect I shall do what they do.Lucy Carmichael is jilted at the altar. But no matter. Her loving and kind family never liked her explorer fiance anyway.Instead of moping or falling into her supportive familys arms, however, Lucy abandons their suburban home. Heading for the country, she takes up a teaching position in the industrial town of Ravonsbridge.There, she finds solace in her work, in her new (rather gossipy) colleagues and rediscovers her sensible young self.But if Lucy has, despite everything, kept her head where lies her heart?Praise for Margaret Kennedy:She is not only a romantic but an anarchist, and she knows the ways of men and women very well indeed Anita BrooknerKennedy was immensely popular in her heydayWashington PostMargaret Kennedys poised style, cool wit and skilful characterization kept her novels welcome for three decadesCambridge Guide to Literature in English

El joven y orondo profesor de griego Selwyn Potter se encuentra en la isla de Thasos a un antiguo catedrático, el pomposo, egocéntrico, asocial y maleducado Percival Challoner, que finge no conocerlo. Se dirige a la misteriosa isla de Keritha, alejada de cualquier ruta turistica y donde los forasteros no son bienvenidos, para tomar posesion de la herencia de unos tios suyos que, de manera muy molesta, resultaban ser mas jovenes que el Challoner odia esa clase de extravagancias-. Su conocimiento del griego clasico es tan grande como su ignorancia del moderno, por lo que Potter se ofrece a continuar viaje con el haciendo labores de traductor. Asi ambos se embarcan en un minusculo bote cargado de varias cajas de Coca-Cola y una cabra con destino a Keritha.

La fiesta es un libro de misterio clásico sumamente original que reúne todos los elementos del género en una fábula oscura e ingeniosa inspirada en los Siete Pecados Capitales, y que recuerda a las mejores obras de Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier o P.D. James.Todo empieza con una noticia inquietante: un hotel en Cornualles ha quedado sepultado por un derrumbamiento en los acantilados que lo rodean, dejando siete huespedes muertos. Pero, ¿que es lo que reunio a este diverso conjunto de personas? Para descubrirlo, volvemos una semana atras y conocemos a cada uno de los veraneantes, a cada cual mas excentrico y todos con su propia historia que contar. Con unas gloriosas vacaciones de verano como telon de fondo, se forman amistades, florecen romances y se revelan pecados, mientras unas grietas se ensanchan cada vez mas en los acantilados.Algunos de los invitados viviran y otros moriran, pero la identidad de los supervivientes es desconocida hasta el sorprendente y desgarrador final.

A Victorian gentleman is forced by illness to entertain himself with the family archive, and he uncovers the Regency-era correspondence and diaries of one Miles Lufton, MP - apparently a black sheep of the family, connected with a scandal long buried. But through the pieced-together artefacts from the past, a fuller picture emerges of a man torn between two personalities - Miles, serious, studious and penniless, and Pronto, flirt, political mover and eternal extra man. Miles longs to dispose of his disreputable alter ego, but that way lies calamity...

Margaret Kennedy caught just the taste of the time, mixing a stolid domestic Englishness with Continental bohemians Irish TimesWilliam and Emily Crowne seem to have it all they live a life of privilege and glamour in London, the children of a successful poet, attractive, happy, largely blind to the world around them. But life takes an unexpected turn when their mother dies, and their father is caught up in the most scandalous and notorious of criminal trials. Suddenly effectively orphans, their aunt takes them in, and they grow up alongside their cousins, Trevor and Charlotte. But tensions and jealousies are rife between the four, and soon the Crowne children find that their fathers notoriety will follow them into their adult lives, with devastating consequences.

Agatha is aware of an intensity, a powerful storm of emotion briefly awakened by a shortlived love affair with her cousin Gerald, that is entirely lacking from the successful marriage on which she is about to embark. Beautiful, young and carefully brought up, Agatha knows she is securing a perfect and luxurious future in marrying handsome John Clewer and becoming Mistress of Lyndon, and she soon becomes the perfect country house hostess. But when Gerald reappears and war in Europe disturbs the sheltered comfort of Lyndon forever, Agatha is once again haunted by the idea of a different life.