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256p PERSEPHONE BOOKS ISBN 190315510X
PREFACE BY HENRIETTA TWYCROSS-MARTIN
Miss Pettigrew is about a governess sent by an
employment agency to the wrong address, where she encounters
a glamorous night-club singer, Miss LaFosse. 'The sheer
fun, the light-heartedness' in this wonderful 1938 book
'feels closer to a Fred Astaire film than anything else'
comments the Preface-writer Henrietta Twycross-Martin,
who found Miss Pettigrew for Persephone Books. The Guardian asked:
'Why has it taken more than half a century for this wonderful
flight of humour to be rediscovered?' while the Daily
Mail liked the book's message - 'that everyone, no
matter how poor or prim or neglected, has a second chance
to blossom in the world.' Maureen Lipman wrote in 'Books
of the Year' in the Guardian: 'Perhaps the most
pleasure has come from Persephone's enchanting reprints,
particularly Miss Pettigrew, a fairy story set in
1930s London'; and she herself entertained R4 listeners
with her five-part reading. And in The Shops India
Knight called Miss Pettigrew 'the sweetest grown-up
book in the world'.
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