Crusoe's Daughter - by Jane Gardam (Paperback)

About the Book

When Polly Flint was six she was sent to live with her two holy aunts close to the Irish Sea. For Polly the world of booksNespecially Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe"Nbecame a life saving source of emotional and intellectual nourishment.

Book Synopsis

From the award-winning author of Old Filth. "[A] wonderfully old-fashioned novel . . . This post-Victorian charmer is an engrossing delight" (People).

In 1904, six-year-old Polly Flint is sent by her sea captain father to live with her aunts in a house by the sea on England's northeast coast. Orphaned shortly thereafter, Polly will spend the next eighty years stranded in this quiet corner of the world as the twentieth century rages in the background. Through it all, Polly returns again and again to the story of Robinson Crusoe, who, marooned like her, fends off the madness of isolation with imagination. In The Guardian's series on writers and readers' favorite comfort books, associate editor Claire Armitstead said of Crusoe's Daughter, "This is the most bookish of books . . . Every time I return to it, I am comforted by its refusal to conform, its wonderful, boisterous bolshiness, and the intelligence with which it demonstrates that we are what we read."

"Witty, subversive, moving."--The Times (London)

"[A] richly textured novel . . . much occurs on the emotional landscape. We know Polly intimately, and she haunts our imaginations as surely as Crusoe haunts hers . . . a thought-provoking book."--Library Journal

"[The] most seductively entertaining of British novelists."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Jane Gardam's novels include, The Flight of the Maidens, a New York Times Notable Book. She won the prestigious Whitbread Award for The Hollow Land and The Queen of the Tambourine, while God on the Rocks was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Old Filth, was a finalist for the Orange Prize, The Man in the Wooden Hat was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Last Friends, was a finalist for the Folio Award. She lives in England near the sea.