Books by Penelope Fitzgerald

The Bookshop

by Penelope Fitzgerald

National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop is "a marvelously piercing fiction" (Times Literary Supplement), short-listed for the Booker Prize.

With an Introduction by David Nicholls, international best-selling author of One Day.

In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop—the only bookshop—in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors’ lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence’s warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted.

Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn’t always a town that wants one.

Basis for the major motion picture starring Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, and Patricia Clarkson.

The Bookshop

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, a comic story follows a kindhearted English widow's struggle to open a bookshop in a seaside town against the polite but uncompromising opposition of the town's arbiters of culture. Original.

Human Voices

by Penelope Fitzgerald

“A wonderful combination of deadpan English comedy and surreal farce.” — A. S. Byatt “A tribute to the unsung and quintessentially English heroism of imperfect people.” — New Criterion

When British listeners tuned in to the BBC's Nine O'Clock News in the middle of 1940, they had no idea what human dramas—and follies—were unfolding behind the scenes. Targeted by enemy bombers, the BBC had turned its concert hall into a dormitory for both sexes, and personal chaos rivaled the political. Amidst the bombs and broadcasts two program directors fight for power while their younger female assistants fall prey to affairs, abandonment, and unrequited love. Reading this intimate glimpse behind the scenes of the BBC in its heyday, “one is left with the sensation,” William Boyd wrote in London Magazine, “that this is what it was really like.”

This new edition features an introduction by Mark Damazer, along with new cover art.

The Gate of Angels

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Short-listed for the Booker Prize.

“A singular accomplishment.” — Boston Globe

“Powerfully bewitching.” — Los Angeles Times

In 1912, rational Fred Fairly, one of Cambridge’s best and brightest, crashes his bike and wakes up in bed with a stranger — fellow casualty Daisy Saunders, a charming, pretty, generous working-class nurse. So begins a series of complications — not only of the heart but also of the head — as Fred and Daisy take up each other’s education and turn each other’s philosophies upside down.

This new edition features an introduction by Philip Hensher, author of Scenes from Early Life, along with new cover art.

The Gate of Angels

by Penelope Fitzgerald

In 1912, rational Fred Fairly, one of Cambridge's best and brightest, crashes his bike and wakes up in bed with a stranger--fellow casualty Daisy Saunders, a charming, pretty, working-class nurse. So begins a series of complications--not only of the heart but also of the head--as Fred and Daisy take up each other's education and turn each other's philosophies upside-down.

The Blue Flower: A Novel

by Penelope Fitzgerald

A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER in Fiction. Booker Prize–winning novelist Fitzgerald's crowning literary work centers on the 18th-century German poet and philosopher Novalis and his love for the simple Sophie.

The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe among the small towns and great universities of 18th-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his father's permission to wed his "heart's heart," his "spirit's guide"—a plain, simple child named Sophievon Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends. Their brilliant young Fritz, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard? How can this be?

Their rationality of love, the transfiguration of the commonplace, the clarity of purpose that comes with knowing one's own fate— these are the themes of this beguiling novel, themes treated with a mix of wit, grace, and mischievous humor.

“An extraordinary imagining . . . an original masterpiece.”—Financial Times

"An astonishing book...Fitzgerald's greatest triumph."—New York Times Book Review

Innocence: A Novel

by Dean Koontz, Kathleen Tessaro, Penelope Fitzgerald

From New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Tessaro comes a poignant, funny, and unforgettable story of real life, real love, and fantasy—and the changes they put you through.
1986. Starry-eyed and ready to take the world by storm, Evie Garlick leaves her small town of Eden, Ohio, to study drama in London, intent on becoming a star of the classical stage. But when she arrives in England, it quickly becomes clear she’s way out of her element—and completely unprepared for what fate has in store for her.
Luckily, her new flatmate, the larger-than-life Robbie, immediately takes the bewildered Evie under her wing. Glamorous and bohemian, Robbie’s unorthodox Greenwich Village upbringing and reckless lust for life both dazzle and astonish Evie. Soon the drama offstage in their small student flat is more exciting than any Broadway play. And when Evie meets Jake, a defiantly self-assured young musician bent on two things—success and her—she finds herself suddenly in far too deep, painfully in love, out of control, and yet thrillingly alive, questioning everything about herself—and her dreams.
2001.Robbie has been dead for five years, and Evie, now a single mother, is still living in London. Resigned to earning a living by teaching drama to night students, her life bears little resemblance to the one she’d imagined for herself fifteen years ago. Her carefully ordered routine and beloved son help to keep the memories and regrets at bay—most of the time. But when the past pays Evie a visit, she’s forced to confront the ambitious young woman she used to be and re-examine the choices she made…and those she couldn’t—in order to claim a new future.

Innocence: A Novel

by Dean Koontz, Kathleen Tessaro, Penelope Fitzgerald

“A delectable comedy of manners.” —Boston Globe

The Ridolfi are a Florentine family of long lineage and little money. It is 1955, Italy is still struggling back after the war, and the family, like its decrepit villa and farm, has seen better days. Among the Ridolfi, only eighteen-year-old Chiara shows anything like vitality. But it’s a vitality matched by innocence—a dangerous combination, to herself and to all who love her.

Chiara sets her heart on the bull-headed Salvatore, a brilliant young doctor from the south who resolved long ago to be emotionally dependent on no one. Stymied, she calls on her resourceful English girlfriend, Barney, to help her make the impossible match. And so ensues a comedy of errors, in which guileless lovers, with the best of intentions, considerable charm, and the kindest of instincts, succeed in making one another thoroughly and astonishingly miserable.

“An exquisite mosaic, where every tiny piece is part of a world.” —A. S. Byatt, Threepenny Review

Innocence: A Novel

by Dean Koontz, Kathleen Tessaro, Penelope Fitzgerald

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In Innocence, Dean Koontz blends mystery, suspense, and acute insight into the human soul in a masterfully told tale that will resonate with readers forever.

He lives in solitude beneath the city, an exile from society, which will destroy him if he is ever seen.

She dwells in seclusion, a fugitive from enemies who will do her harm if she is ever found.

But the bond between them runs deeper than the tragedies that have scarred their lives. Something more than chance—and nothing less than destiny—has brought them together in a world whose hour of reckoning is fast approaching.

Praise for Innocence

“A thriller that’s both chilling and fulfilling.”—People (four stars)

“Laced with fantastical mysticism, it’s an allegory of nonviolence, acceptance and love in the face of adversity. . . . The narrative is intense, with an old-fashioned ominousness and artistically crafted descriptions. . . . An optimistic and unexpected conclusion [mirrors] his theme. Something different this way comes from Mr. Koontz’s imagination. Enjoy.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Mystery and terror, the paranormal and romance—all combine to make Innocence a challenging and emotional experience.”—New York Journal of Books

“This novel really is something special. . . . This may just be the book Dean Koontz was born to write.”—Thriller Books Journal

“Entrancing . . . as speedy a chase-thriller as any Koontz . . . has ever constructed. Written in Koontz’ late mellifluent and reflective manner . . . [Innocence is] fueled by deep disgust with the world’s evils [and] hope for redemption.”—Booklist (starred review)

“[An] imaginative, mystical thriller from bestseller Koontz . . . This is the most satisfying Koontz standalone in a while.”—Publishers Weekly

“Masterful storyteller Koontz delivers perhaps his most eerie and unusual tale to date. The timeline in this amazing story is compact, and readers will be swept along as they try to unravel hints and clues as to the true nature of both the protagonists and the unfolding drama. Unpredictably spine-chilling and terrifying, this is a story readers won’t soon forget.”—RT Book Reviews

“Elegant . . . Fans of Koontz’s previous series will be left hoping that Addison and Gwyneth, too, will return.”—Library Journal

The Afterlife: Essays and Criticism

by Penelope Fitzgerald

A posthumous collection of literary essays explores the "afterlife" of the writing community, defined as a legacy experienced in the minds and hearts of their readers; in a volume that includes introductions to major works of literature, reviews of fellow authors, and explorations of lesser-known writers.

From the late novelist and biographer Penelope Fitzgerald, a collection of essays-almost all of them unknown to her countless American admirers-on books, travel, and her own life and work. A good book, wrote John Milton, is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. In this generous posthumous collection of her literary essays and reviews, Penelope Fitzgerald celebrates the life beyond life of dozens of master-spirits--their afterlife not only in the pages of their works but in the minds of their readers, critics, and biographers.

Here are Fitzgerald's brilliant introductions to the classics--Jane Austen's Emma, George Eliot's Middlemarch, the works of Mrs. Oliphant--as well as considerations of recent novels by Barbara Pym, Carol Shields, Roddy Doyle, and Amy Tan. Here too are reviews of several late-twentieth-century literary biographies, including Richard Holmes's Coleridge, A. N. Wilson's C. S. Lewis, and Martin Stannard's Evelyn Waugh-reviews that together form a memorable criticism both of life and the art of life-writing.

The Knox Brothers

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Here is a biography whose eccentric genius perfectly matches that of its subjects. Penelope Fitzgerald tells the lives of four extraordinary Englishmen–her father and his brothers–with style and wit. Here is the story of a deeply fascinating family mind, shared by four brothers and passed along to their remarkable biographer.

The Beginning Of Spring

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald's novel of pre-revolutionary Moscow, shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Featuring an introduction by Andrew Miller.

“Fitzgerald was the author of several slim, perfect novels. The Blue Flower and The Beginning of Spring both had me abuzz for days the first time I read them. She was curiously perfect.”― Teju Cole, author of Open City

“Writing so precise and lilting it can make you shiver.” ― Los Angeles Times

March 1913. Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring. English painter Frank Reid returns from work one night to find that his wife has gone away; no one knows where or why, or whether she’ll ever come back. All Frank knows for sure is that he is now alone and must find someone to care for his three young children. Into Frank’s life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a quiet, calming beauty from the country, untroubled to the point of seeming simple. But is she? And why has Frank’s bookkeeper, Selwyn Crane, gone to such lengths to bring these two together?

At Freddie's

by Penelope Fitzgerald

A jewel of a book. Daily Mail
It is the 1960s, in London s West End, and Freddie is the formidable proprietress of the Temple Stage School, which supplies child actors for everything from Shakespeare to musicals to the Christmas pantomime. Of unknown age and provenance, Freddie is a skirt-swathed enigma a woman who by sheer force of character and single-minded thrust has turned herself and her school into a national institution. Anyone who is anyone must know Freddie.
Filled with unique and hilarious insights into the theatrical world, At Freddie s is a beguiling story for those of us who sometimes pretend to be something we are not.
Love, fear, class, ambition, even death it's all in here, but so elegantly presented that you've finished your plate before you even think to ask about the ingredients. National Public Radio
PENELOPE FITZGERALD (1916 2000) was one of the most elegant and distinctive voices in British fiction. She won the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction for The Blue Flower, the Booker Prize for Offshore, and three of her novels The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, and The Beginning of Spring were short-listed for the Booker Prize.
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Offshore: A Novel

by Penelope Fitzgerald

"Dazzling. The novelistic equivalent of a Turner watercolor." —Washington Post
Penelope Fitzgerald's Booker Prize–winning novel of loneliness and connecting is set among the houseboat community of the Thames. This edition includes a new introduction from Alan Hollinghurst.
On the Battersea Reach, a mixed bag of the slightly disreputable, the temporarily lost, and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the tides of the Thames.
There is good-natured Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by chance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, an ex-navy man whose boat, much like its owner, dominates the Reach. Then there is Nenna, an abandoned wife and mother of two young girls running wild on the muddy foreshore, whose domestic predicament, as it deepens, will draw this disparate community together.
A novel the Booker judges deemed "flawless," Offshore is one of Fitzgerald’s greatest triumphs.

The Golden Child

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald's novel, The Golden Child, combines a deft comedy of manners with a classic mystery set in London's most refined institution—the museum. When the glittering treasure of ancient Garamantia, the golden child, is delivered to the museum, a web of intrigue tightens around its personnel, especially the hapless museum officer Waring Smith. While prowling the halls one night, Waring is nearly strangled. Two suspicious deaths ensue, and only the cryptic hieroglyphics of the Garamantes can bring an end to the mayhem. Fitzgerald has an unerring eye for human nature, and this satirical look at the art world delivers a terrifically witty read.

Offshore, Human Voices, The Beginning of Spring (Everyman's Library)

by Penelope Fitzgerald

After publishing her first novel in 1977 at the age of sixty-one, Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) went on to become one of the most remarkable and highly acclaimed English writers of the last century. Each of the three novels gathered here vividly and unforgettably conjures up an entire world.

The Booker Prize-winning novel Offshore limns the marginal existence of an eccentric assortment of barge dwellers on the Thames in the early 1960s, a group of misfits who are drawn to life on the muddy river in exile from the world of the landlocked. Human Voices takes us behind the scenes at the BBC during World War II, as world-weary directors and nubile young assistants attempt to save Britain’s heritage and keep Britons calm in the face of a feared German invasion. In The Beginning of Spring, a struggling English printer living in Moscow in 1913 is abandoned by his wife and left alone to care for his three young children in the face of the impending revolution.

Fitzgerald is a genius of the relevant detail and the deftly sketched context, and these narrative gems are marvels of compassion, wit, and piercing insight.

The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower Introduction by Frank Kermode

by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald, who died in 2000, emerged late in life as one of the most remarkable English writers of the last century. She began her writing career in 1975 at the age of fifty-nine, and over the next two decades she published three biographies, nine novels, and a collection of short stories. Now three of her acclaimed novels are gathered here in one volume.

The Bookshop is a postwar tragicomedy of manners, set in an isolated seaside town where an enterprising woman opens a bookstore only to find it beset by poltergeists, weather, and hostile townsfolk. The Gate of Angels is an Edwardian romance within a novel of ideas: a young doctor devoted to science and to his all-male Cambridge college finds his life and views disrupted by a nurse named Daisy. The Blue Flower, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, revitalizes historical drama through the story of Novalis, an eighteenth-century German romantic poet and visionary genius, and his unlikely love affair with a simple child-woman.

These three novels all display Fitzgerald’s characteristic wit, intellectual breadth, and narrative brilliance, applied to an array of traditional forms into which she breathed new life.