Harriet Said...

Harriet Said... was the first novel written by Beryl Bainbridge, based on newspaper reports the Parker–Hulme murder case in New Zealand which involved two young girls.[1]

Harriet Said...
First edition (UK)
AuthorBeryl Bainbridge
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
PublisherDuckworth (UK)
George Braziller (US)
Publication date
1972 (UK), 1973 (US)
Media typePrint
Pages152
ISBN0-7156-0657-3
OCLC632645
823/.9/14
LC ClassPZ4.B162 Har PR6052.A3195

Although completed in 1958[2] it was rejected by several publishers in the late fifties, one of whom wrote on the flyleaf of a first edition:

what repulsive little creatures you have made the two central characters, repulsive almost beyond belief! And I think the scene in which the two men and the two girls meet in the Tsar's house is too indecent and unpleasant even for these lax days. What is more, I fear that even now a respectable printer would not print it!.

The manuscript was thought lost but was found by one publisher, returned to the author and finally published by Duckworth in 1972, and by George Braziller in the US the following year.

Plot

It concerns two schoolgirls spending their holiday in an English coastal town. Harriet is the older at 14 and the leader of the two. The 13-year-old unnamed narrator develops a crush on an unhappily married middle-aged man, Peter Biggs, whom they nickname "the Tsar." Led by pretty, malevolent Harriet they study his relationship with his wife, planning to humiliate him. Their plan quickly goes wrong, however, with horrifying results.

gollark: I see.
gollark: Of course, since it is impossible to have friends who know networking things or who will not randomly shun those who do.
gollark: The subnet mask is wrong, the DMZ doesn't make sense, ALT DNS isn't a valid IP address, the IPv6 address is also wrong (and a link local one), and the DNS suffix seems wrong given the alleged router vendor.
gollark: Oh, also, religions tend to constrain your actions in vaguely nonsensical ways so that's another cost.
gollark: Great! I am going to sleep maybe eventually.

References
  1. Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Archived 2011-07-13 at the Wayback Machine
  2. http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/bainbridge-beryl


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.