"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Once the Old House Bookshop is up and running, Florence is subjected to the hilarious perils of running a subscription library, training a 10-year-old assistant, and obtaining the right merchandise for her customers. Men favor works "by former SAS men, who had been parachuted into Europe and greatly influenced the course of the war; they also placed orders for books by Allied commanders who poured scorn on the SAS men, and questioned their credentials." Women fight over a biography of Queen Mary. "This was in spite of the fact that most of them seemed to possess inner knowledge of the court--more, indeed, than the biographer." But it is only when the slippery Milo North suggests Florence sell the Olympia Press edition of "Lolita" that Florence comes under legal and political fire.
Fitzgerald's heroine divides people into "exterminators and exterminatees," a vision she clearly shares with her creator--but the author balances disillusion with grace, wit, and weirdness, favoring the open ending over the moral absolute. Penelope Fitzgerald's internecine if gentle world view even extends to literature--books are living, jostling things. Florence finds that paperbacks, crowding "the shelves in well-disciplined ranks," vie with Everyman editions, which "in their shabby dignity, seemed to confront them with a look of reproach." One senses that classic hardcovers would welcome The Bookshop, despite its status as a paperback original. --Kerry Fried
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good Minus. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Minus. Second impression 1980. Lightly bumped on ends of spine, cocked, light foxing on top edge, scarce foxing on bottom edge, previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown, small (1/8 inch) blue star stamp on last page, single pinpoint dot of foxing opposite, else pages clean and binding firm. Overall, very good minus. DJ price-clipped, five small hardened silver drops on front, spine faded, creased and chipped on head of spine, creased on heel of spine, else very good minus. Protected in mylar. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Seller Inventory # 006888
Book Description Condition: Good. Ships from the UK. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 16093649-20
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. FIRST EDITION. 1978 Gerald Duckworth hardcover first edition, first impression. Light reading wear, slight fading to dustjacket over the spine, slight scuff to blank endpaper else very good condition. The book is housed is a custom slipcase showing an image from the front cover of the book, covered with tweed-green bookcloth and lined with cream acid-free paper. Seller Inventory # RH-E8PL-9TNZ