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The Lady and the Unicorn

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781844088478

Price: £9.99

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By the author of Black Narcissus and The River

‘Rumer Godden’s novels have a timeless shimmer’ GUARDIAN

‘Touching, amusing, enchanting . . . an exceptional work’ OBSERVER

‘Her prose is pure, delicate, and gently witty’ NEW YORK TIMES

In a crumbling Calcutta mansion, with faded frescos and a jasmine-covered garden, the Lemarchant family live, clinging to the fringes of respectability: neither Indian nor English, they are accepted by no one and exploited by all.

After only a day in India, Stephen Bright meets Rosa Lemarchant. In an ill-fitting dress once belonging to her sister, she is awkward, shy and couldn’t be more different from the stories he has heard of fast ‘Eurasian’ girls. Ignorant of Calcutta’s strict codes of conformity, he falls in love with Rosa and becomes enchanted by the building in which she lives, determined to uncover its secrets.

Mystery pervades this story of a memory-haunted house in old Calcutta, as secret as a sundial in a ruined garden.

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Reviews

Touching, amusing, enchanting . . . an exceptional work
Observer
One of our best and most captivating novelists
Philip Hensher
Her craftsmanship is always sure; her understanding of character is compassionate and profound; her prose is pure, delicate, and gently witty
New York Times
Rumer Godden's novels have a timeless shimmer. But powerful adult themes underlie their surface
Rosie Thomas, Guardian
This tale of a haunted house in a decayed quarter of Calcutta cannot fail to delight . . . graceful and perceptive
Scotsman