Mrs Engels [eBook]
McCrea, Gavin2015
eBook
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Love is a bygone idea, centuries-worn. There are things we can go without, and love is among them; bread and a warm hearth are not. In September 1870 a train leaves Manchester bound for London. On board is Lizzie Burns, a poor worker from the Irish slums, who is embarking on the journey that will change her forever. Sitting in the first-class carriage beside her lover, the wealthy mill-owner Frederick Engels, the vision of a life of peace and comfort takes shape before her eyes: finally, at nearly fifty, she is to be the lady of a house and the wife to a man. Perhaps now she can put the difficulties of the past behind her, and be happy? In Gavin McCrea's stunning debut novel, we follow Lizzie as the promise of an easy existence in the capital slips from her view, and as she gains, in its place, a profound understanding of herself and of the world. While Frederick and his friend Karl Marx try to spur revolution among the working classes, Lizzie is compelled to undertake a revolution of another kind: of the heart and the soul. Haunted by her first love—a revolutionary Irishman; burdened by a sense of duty to right past mistakes; and torn between a desire for independence and the pragmatic need to be taken care of, Lizzie learns, as she says, that 'the world doesn't happen how you think it will. The secret is to soften to it, and to take its blows.' Wry, astute and often hilarious, Lizzie is as compelling and charismatic a figure as ever walked the streets of Victorian England, or its novels. In giving her renewed life, Gavin McCrea earns his place in the pantheon of great debut novelists.
Main title:
Mrs Engels [eBook] / Gavin McCrea
Author:
McCrea, Gavin, Author
Imprint:
[Place of publication not identified] : Scribe Publications, 2015
Collation:
1 online resource (1 text file)
Biography/History:
Gavin McCrea was born in Dublin in 1978 and has since travelled widely, living in Japan, Italy and Spain, among other places. He holds a BA and an MA from University College Dublin, and an MA and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. He currently lives between the UK and Spain.
ISBN:
9781925113792
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
265485
Electronic access:
More Information:
| Location | Collection | Call number | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web | Ebooks | DOWNLOADABLE | Overdrive - eBook |