Jane Gardam

First in the Old Filth trilogy. A New York Times Notable Book. Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong) to his final working days as a respected judge at the English bar. Yet through it all he has carried with him the wounds of a difficult and emotionally hollow childhood. Now an eighty-year-old...

Second in the Old Filth trilogy. Acclaimed as Jane Gardam's masterpiece, Old Filth is a lyrical novel that recalls the fully lived life of Sir Edward Feathers. The Man in the Wooden Hat is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself. They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister,...

While Old Filth introduced readers to Sir Edward Feathers, his dreadful childhood, and his decades-long marriage, The Man in the Wooden Hat was his wife Betty's story. Last Friends is Terence Veneering's turn. His beginnings were not those of the usual establishment grandee. Filth's hated rival in court and in love is the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in the English midlands and a local girl. He escapes the war and later emerges in the Far East...

The Whitbread Award-winning author of the Old Filth trilogy captures a moment in time for three young women on the cusp of adulthood. Yorkshire, 1946. The end of the war has changed the world again, and, emboldened by this new dawning, Hetty Fallows, Una Vane, and Lieselotte Klein seize the opportunities with enthusiasm. Hetty, desperate to escape the grasp of her critical mother, books a solo holiday to the Lake District under the pretext of completing...

From the award-winning author of Old Filth. 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,...

Jane Gardam's marvelous stories of young girls on the threshold of womanhood-God on the Rocks and Crusoe's Daughter-have delighted fans and critics alike. These modern classics are now joined by a novel that is equally fresh and genuine, comic and touching. Jessica Vye introduces herself with an enigmatic pronouncement: "I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine." A revered...

Jane Gardam's beloved Old Filth Trilogy-including her masterpiece, Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat; and Last Friends-are here presented in one volume. Emotionally distant but highly successful Edward Feathers, aka Old Filth, a man who his beautiful wife Betty, and his devilishly handsome professional rival (and Betty's onetime lover) Edward Veneering are the anchors of this series, with each novel focusing on a different character. Feathers...

A short story by Jane Gardam from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre. In 'It's a Man's Life, Ladies', a young woman tells the story of her grandmother's memories of married life. Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader, I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë's game-changing...