Antonia White

Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient and eager to please, she accepts this closed world where, with all the enthusiasm of the outsider, her desires and passions become only those the school permits. Her only deviation from total obedience is the passionate friendships she makes. Convent life is perfectly captured - the smell of beeswax and incense; the petty cruelties of the nuns; the eccentricities of Nanda's school friends.

Frost in May

When Clara returns home from the convent of her childhood to begin life at a local girls' school, she is at a loss: although she has comparative freedom, she misses the discipline the nuns imposed and worries about keeping her faith in a secular world. Against the background of the First World War, Clara experiences the confusions of adolescence - its promise, its threat of change. She longs for love, yet fears it, and wonders what the future will hold. Then tragedy strikes and her childhood haltingly comes to an end as she realises that neither parents nor her faith can help her. The Lost Traveller is the first in the trilogy sequel to Frost in May, which continues with The Sugar House and Beyond the Glass. Although each is a complete novel in itself, together they form a brilliant portrait of a young girl's journey to adulthood.

The Lost Traveller

The Enchanting Story of a Writer and Her Cats

Minka and Curdy

With uncompromising clarity, in her careful, delicate prose, antonia White looks at the pains and joys of growing up, of falling in and out of love, the borderlands between love and loneliness, sanity and madness, belief and the loss of faith. First published in 1954, STRANGERS is here extended to include her autobiographical story, 'Surprise Visit'; together they present some of Antonia White's finest writing.

Strangers

The diaries of this flamboyant light of literary London reveal an intelligence as formidable and as tormented as Virginia Woolf's and a life of even greater drama. The sheer excess of her life make these diaries--published only after an extensive legal battle--a literary event. 8 pages of photos.

1926-1957

Antonia White Diaries

The year is 1914. Fifteen-year-old Clara Batchelor returns from the regimented convent of her childhood, still in thrall to the benevolent authoritarianism of her father and the imperious affection of her dissatisfied mother. In this devout Catholic family Clara is "Daddy's girl," and their intese relationship makes impossible demands on a young girl unwillingly learning to be a woman. Against the background of a world at war, Clara experiences the vagaries of adolescence: its promise, its threat of change. Then, faced with the first tragedy of her adult life, she comes to realize that neither parents nor marriage nor her faith can protect her.

Lost Traveller

A Novel

Contains the letters between Antonia White - a lapsed Catholic - and a former Jesuit novice. Although Antonia White returned to Church, these letters record the conflicts which preceded and followed this reconversion. They also chart the unfolding of an intimate relationship between them.

The Story of a Reconversion to the Catholic Faith

The Hound and the Falcon

As Once in May

Beyond the Glass (Virago Modern Classics)

Frost in May ; The Lost traveller

Frost in May B Book Club

Frost in May B Special

Frost in May: Frost in May ; The Lost traveller

Clara Batchelor is twenty-two. Her brief, doomed marriage to Archie over, she returns to live with her parents in the home of her childhood. She hopes for comfort but the devoutly Catholic household confines her and forms a dangerous glass wall of guilt and repression between Clara and the outside world. Clara both longs for and fears what lies beyond, and when she escapes into an exhilarating and passionate love affair her fragile identity cracks. Beyond the Glass completes the trilogy sequel to Frost in May, which began with The Lost Traveller and The Sugar House. Although each is a complete novel in itself, together they form a brilliant portrait of a young girl's journey to adulthood.

Beyond The Glass

The year is 1920. Clara Batchelor, the heroine of The Lost Traveller, is now an actress with a touring repertory company and is passionately in love with the wholly unsuitable Stephen Tye. When Stephen betrays her, Clara betrays herself by agreeing to marry Archie, the fiance‚ she discarded four years before. A friendship but not a love match, the marriage is a desperate attempt by Clara to rekindle the safety of childhood. But neither of them are children any more and their dream sugar house begins to dissolve. The Sugar House is the second in the trilogy sequel to Frost in May, which began with The Lost Traveller and continues in Beyond the Glass. Although each is a complete novel in itself, together they form a brilliant portrait of a young girl's journey to adulthood.

Antonia White

About

Books

Join the club