{"product_id":"the-tortoise-and-the-hare-by-elizabeth-jenkins","title":"'The Tortoise and the Hare' by Elizabeth Jenkins","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"51\" data-end=\"595\"\u003eA beautifully cold domestic novel about marriage, rivalry, self-deception and slowly getting replaced.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"51\" data-end=\"595\"\u003eImogen Gresham is elegant, devoted and apparently secure in her life with her barrister husband Evelyn, until the formidable Blanche Silcox begins to draw him away with a kind of blunt, practical force that Imogen cannot quite understand or combat. The title is perfect: this is a novel about speed, patience, vanity, strategy, and when social cleverness proves useless against someone simply more determined.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"597\" data-end=\"1243\"\u003eOriginally published in 1954, it has the surface manners of mid-century English domestic fiction, but underneath it is much stranger and more ruthless: a study of emotional dispossession, female rivalry, class, marriage, and the cruelty of politeness. Hilary Mantel’s introduction is a good signal here — this is not cosy Virago rediscovery, but a sharp, psychologically exact novel about the ways a woman can lose ground almost before she knows she is standing on it. Good for readers of Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Taylor, Penelope Mortimer, Anita Brookner, Rosamond Lehmann, and mid-century novels where the drawing room is basically a battlefield.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1245\" data-end=\"1607\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVirago Press hardback edition, published in Great Britain in 2011. Good second-hand condition, with light handling\/shelfwear to boards\/corners.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45689649266771,"sku":null,"price":16.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/thebowerbooker_70.png?v=1781159361","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/the-tortoise-and-the-hare-by-elizabeth-jenkins","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}