A house unlocked
By: Penelope Lively.
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2001
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 225
Subjects: Lively, Penelope, 1933- -- Homes and haunts -- England -- Golsoncott.; Lively, Penelope, 1933- -- Family.; Novelists, English -- Homes and haunts -- England -- Golsoncott.; Novelists, English -- 20th century -- Biography.; Golsoncott (England) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.; Somerset (England) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.; Golsoncott (England) -- Social life and customs.; Somerset (England) -- Social life and customs.; Golsoncott (England) -- Biography.
Genres: Biography.
Description: "'I thought that I would see if the private life of a house could be made to bear witness to the public traumas of a century'. Here Penelope Lively recalls Golsoncott, the country house in Somerset her grandparents bought in 1923. Through the sometimes strange, unfamiliar articles there - the gong stand, the picnic rug, the potted meat jars and bon bon dishes - she charts the social changes and transforming moments of the twentieth century. Changing attitudes to social class, the tension between town and country, how one learns to see the world: all are examined in this eloquent, fascinating memoir."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 225).
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Preface ix; title: The Hall Chest, the Photograph Albums and the Picnic Rug i; title: The Children on the Sampler 29; title: The Gong Stand, The Book of Common Prayer and the Potted-Meat Jars 53; title: The Woman in White and the Boy on the Beach 81; title: The Cedar of Lebanon and Erigeron karvinskianus in The Sunset Painting and the Harness Room 141; title: The Dressing-Room, the Nursery and the Grand Piano 165; title: The Knife Rests, the Grape Scissors and the Bon-Bon Dish 193; title: Acknowledgements 223; title: Bibliography 225.