by Warner, Sylvia Townsend Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)Published 28/01/2021 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of the Penguin Modern Classics series. Paperback | 352 pages129 x 198 x 24mm | 258g'One of the great British novels of the twentieth century: a narrative of extraordinary reach, power and beauty' Sarah WatersThe nuns who enter a medieval Norfolk convent are told to renounce the world, but the world still finds ways to trouble them, whether it is through fire, floods, pestilence, a collapsing spire, jealous rivalries, a priest with a secret or a plague of caterpillars. As we follow their daily lives over three centuries, this masterpiece of historical fiction re-creates a world run by women.'As an act of imagined history this novel has few rivals. Also, as it happens, a work of high, frequent comedy' George Steiner, The Times Literary Supplement'Spellbinding . . . One starts rereading as soon as one has reached the last page' Sunday Times'Magnificent' Philip Hensher, Daily Telegraph
