The Vet's Daughter

Barbara Comyns, Jane Gardam, Jane Gardam

From Shelf: All Time Favourites.

Barbara Comyns' witty and touching classic The Vet's Daughter tells the story of Alice, a young woman from Edwardian South London who is gripped by strange and mysterious powers.

INTRODUCED BY JANE GARDAM'A small Gothic masterpiece . . . I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities' SARAH WATERS'It projects its fantastic story with a tangible realness . . . A wonderful and original novel' ALAN HOLLINGHURST'She shows mastery of the structures of a fast-moving narrative and a consistent backdrop to the ecstasies and agonies of the human condition' JANE GARDAM, SPECTATOR Growing up in Edwardian South London, Alice Rowlands longs for romance and excitement, for a release from a life that is dreary, restrictive and lonely. Her father, a vet, is harsh and domineering; his new girlfriend brash and lascivious. Alice seeks refuge in memories and fantasies, in her rapturous longing for Nicholas, a handsome young sailor and in the blossoming of what she perceives as her occult powers. A series of strange events unfolds that leads her, dressed in bridal white to a scene of ecstatic triumph and disaster among the crowds on Clapham Common. The Vet's Daughter is a uniquely vivid, witty and touching story of love and mystery.

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