A Notable Woman - by Jean Lucey Pratt (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

'Timeless, funny and utterly absorbing' HILARY MANTEL

In April 1925 at the age of fifteen, Jean Lucey Pratt started a journal that she kept until just a few days before her death in 1986, producing over a million words in 45 exercise books. What emerges is a portrait of a truly unique, spirited woman and writer. Never before has an account so fully, so honestly and so vividly captured a single woman's journey through the twentieth century.

Review Quotes

"A Notable Woman shows us, in close up, how extraordinary the business of an 'ordinary' life can be - how much complexity and feeling and humour it can contain." --Guardian

Engrossing, spiked with wit and charm, keenly observant and consistently humane . . . Shows us, in closeup, how extraordinary the business of an "ordinary" life can be - how much complexity and feeling and humour it can contain--ANTHONY QUINN "Guardian "

Her longings to be elsewhere or to be someone else are utterly recognisable; her frustrations and disappointments poignant . . . These journals are a priceless find--ALISON LIGHT "London Review of Books "

Jean's honesty and unpretentiousness is very striking, and at times very moving too. I'm so pleased to see that an edition of her diaries, in which her full story can emerge, is at last seeing the light of day. She is unquestionably worthy of this, and A Notable Woman will find a valued place on my bookshelf--VIRGINIA NICHOLSON

One of my favourite books of the year . . . the little details are fascinating and the overall portrait of one woman's life in the twentieth century is a must read. I can't recommend this highly enough--CATHY RENTZENBRINK "Stylist "

Spend Christmas with Jean Lucey Pratt, the siren of Slough: you will not regret or forget it . . . wholly absorbing and deeply entertaining--HILARY MANTEL "New Statesman "

The most moving and important book I read this year by a mile: funny, tender and gripping--RACHEL COOKE "New Statesman "

The sort of reading that will have you grip the arm of your chair in joy--ALEXANDRA HEMINSLEY "The Debrief "

What a find! Jean's voice sings across the decades, fresh, vivid and desperate for love - a woman with so much to offer, who kicks against the stuffy society in which she finds herself. I grew to love her sharp observation, her vulnerability and her passion--DEBORAH MOGGACH

What makes Jean's journals special is the intimacy and frankness of her account of a life seen from the inside, and the way she draws the reader into a relationship with her. As a record of the individual's dreams set against the cramped reality, Jean's journals are timeless. She leaps out of her own pages, free as she never was in life: you want to protect her, and simultaneously to slap her and cheer her on. It's very funny, occasionally sobering, and shot through with acute insights. Who would have imagined that the life of a Buckinghamshire bookseller would make you want to turn the pages so fast? I wanted to know how she got through the war, but I was even more interested in when she would lose her virginity--HILARY MANTEL

""A Notable Woman" shows us, in close up, how extraordinary the business of an 'ordinary' life can be - how much complexity and feeling and humour it can contain." "Guardian""

About the Author

Jean Lucey Pratt was born in 1909 in Wembley, Middlesex and lived much of her life in a small cottage on the edge of Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire. She was a trainee architect, she was a publicist, she gardened, she took in lodgers, she read copiously, she wrote criticism, and in later years she ran a bookshop. But above all, she kept track of her life in the most lyrical of ways, from the age of 15 until just a few days before her death in 1986.

Simon Garfield is the author of sixteen acclaimed books of non-fiction including To the Letter, On the Map, Just My Type and Mauve. His study of AIDS in Britain, The End of Innocence, won the Somerset Maugham prize. www.simongarfield.com