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According to Queeney
Beryl Bainbridge
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Description for According to Queeney
Paperback. * A wonderful, immaculately researched novel that brings Dr Johnson, his friends and his times to life. Num Pages: 256 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 126 x 17. Weight in Grams: 188.
'A stellar literary event . . . written with panache and an enviable economy . . . the biggest risk of her literary life' Margaret Atwood According to Queeney is a masterly evocation of the last years of Dr Johnson, arguably Britain's greatest Man of Letters. The time is the 1770s and 1780s and Johnson, having completed his life's major work (he compiled the first ever Dictionary of the English Language) is running an increasingly chaotic life. Torn between his strict morality and his undeclared passion for Mrs Thrale, the wife of an old friend, According to Queeney ... Read morereveals one of Britain's most wonderful characters in all his wit and glory. Above all, though, this is a story of love and friendship and brilliantly narrated by Queeney, Mrs Thrale's daughter, looking back over her life. Show Less
Product Details
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Beryl Bainbridge
Beryl Bainbridge (1932-2010) wrote eighteen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television. Five of her novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Every Man for Himself and Injury Time won the Whitbread Prize, The Bottle Factory Outing won the Guardian Fiction Prize and Master Georgie won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Four of her novels ... Read moreincluding An Awfully Big Adventure were adapted for film. In 2011, Bainbridge was honoured posthumously with a special Best of Beryl Man Booker Prize in recognition of her outstanding career. Her final novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, was published in 2011. Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. Born in South Africa in 1959, she grew up in Italy, where her parents worked for the UN, and was educated at Bedales School and Clare College Cambridge. After a brief time in advertising and PR, she became a journalist for newspapers such as the Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Telegraph and Independent, winning both the Young Journalist of the Year and the Catherine Pakenham Award. She was the children's critic for the Independent on Sunday and The Times. She still reviews children's books for the New Statesman, and literary fiction for the Observer, but is mostly a full-time novelist. Her novel Hearts and Minds was longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, and The Lie of the Land was chosen as a book of the year by the Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, New Statesman, Evening Standard, Sunday Times and Irish Times. Her latest novel, The Golden Rule was longlisted for the Women's Prize 2021. Show Less
Reviews for According to Queeney
This is a small, wise book of small prose miracles . . . It is a larger miracle in this way: it makes us feel we see Johnson and his friends in unexpected and unfamiliar ways which are nevertheless convincing and authentic
Andrew Marr Its subjects - guilt, passion, misunderstanding and suffering - are those that she has addressed ... Read morethroughout her career, but never so perfectly as in this book
Amanda Craig Deftly brilliant . . . Her novel may be called According to Queeney, but it is Bainbridge's unique and acute slant on life, and death, that everywhere transforms it into the slim, packed masterpiece it is
Sunday Times
These real people are superbly recreated in fictional form . . . Bainbridge's spare prose is perfectly suited to her purpose, conveying an immediate sense of experience, in the muddle and intensity of the present. This is a highly intelligent, sophisticated and entertaining novel
Observer
Bainbridge is brilliant at combining established fact and compelling fiction
Daily Mail
This is a triumph, subtle, rich and heartrending . . . Anything worth reading is of course worth reading twice, and this is worth reading many times
Independent on Sunday
Thought-provoking and bleakly beautiful . . . brilliant . . . Bainbridge has shown herself to be working at the peak of her form
Mail on Sunday
Poignant, pierced with truth, According to Queeney reaches into the dustier realms of history, bringing vividly to life a group of remarkable personalities with all their frailties, absurdities and cruel sensitivities
Sunday Telegraph
A dark, often hilarious and deeply human vision . . . a major literary accomplishment
Margaret Atwood Majestically deft . . . Absolutely wonderful
Kirkus
This is a small, wise book of small prose miracles ... It is a larger miracle in this way: it makes us feel we see Johnson and his friends in unexpected and unfamiliar ways which are nevertheless convincing and authentic
Andrew Marr
Its subjects - guilt, passion, misunderstanding and suffering - are those that she has addressed throughout her career, but never so perfectly as in this book
Amanda Craig
Deftly brilliant...Her novel may be called According to Queeney, but it is Bainbridge's unique and acute slant on life, and death, that everywhere transforms it into the slim, packed masterpiece it is
Sunday Times
These real people are superbly recreated in fictional form...Bainbridge's spare prose is perfectly suited to her purpose, conveying an immediate sense of experience, in the muddle and intensity of the present. This is a highly intelligent, sophisticated and entertaining novel
Observer
Bainbridge is brilliant at combining established fact and compelling fiction
Daily Mail
This is a triumph, subtle, rich and heartrending...Anything worth reading is of course worth reading twice, and this is worth reading many times
Independent on Sunday
Thought-provoking and bleakly beautiful...brilliant...Bainbridge has shown herself to be working at the peak of her form
Mail on Sunday
Poignant, pierced with truth, According to Queeney reaches into the dustier realms of history, bringing vividly to life a group of remarkable personalities with all their frailties, absurdities and cruel sensitivities
Sunday Telegraph
A dark, often hilarious and deeply human vision ... a major literary accomplishment
Margaret Atwood
Majestically deft.... Absolutely wonderful
Kirkus, starred review
A stellar literary event ... written with panache and an enviable economy ... the biggest risk of her literary life
Margaret Atwood
This is a small, wise book of small prose miracles ... It is a larger miracle in this way: it makes us feel we see Johnson and his friends in unexpected and unfamiliar ways which are nevertheless convincing and authentic. I did not think anyone could do t
Andrew Marr, DAILY TELEGRAPH
It is hard to think of anyone now writing who understands the human heart as Beryl Bainbridge does, or exposes its workings with more tenderness
THE TIMES
This is a triumph, subtle, rich and heartrending...Anything worth reading is of course worth reading twice, and this is worth reading many times.
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
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