PALLADIAN

by Elizabeth Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A second novel, confirming the delicacy, the discernment of At Mrs. Lippincote's this is also for special tastes, maintaining the wit, the clarity of character detail of the first -- and adding considerable atmospheric effect. To the household of neuralgic, neurotic Marion Vanbrugh, Cassandra Dashwood, young and with a transparent innocence, is sent as governess to the motherless Sophy. Here, in a Gothic frame, is the house neglected, mouldering and melancholy; the household includes querulous Aunt Tinty, her harsh daughter, Margaret, her son Tom, who in his drunkenness becomes interested in the publican's vulgar wife. Sophy, Vanbrugh's six-year-old daughter, had never known her mother, but her life is overcast by the image of the dead woman. Days are spent to kill time, as Marion intersperses his solitary reading of the classics to instruct Cassandra in Greek. The solitary worlds of Tom and Aunt Tinty and Marion Vanbrugh are rudely interrupted by Sophy's death, and only then does Tom disclose the secret of her parentage, thus releasing Marion from bondage, and leaving him free to declare his love for Cassandra. A story that might have been a sort of modern Jane Eyre but which Miss Taylor has kept in clean-cut, sensitive perspective. For an appreciative, though possibly not a wide audience.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1947

Categories: FICTION