Rumer Godden

In this house of Brede

THE DIDDAKOI

A young girl and her pony befriend a dour farmer on the Scottish border.

Mr. McFadden's Hallowe'en

The Dolls' House

This selection of poetry takes the reader through the day from dawn to dusk. The day is divided into sections, such as morning, breakfast time and going to school. The poems come from all over the world and from all ages, from ancient Greece to the present day.

A Day Full of Poetry

Cockcrow to Starlight

The new girl who moves into the mansion next door is a mystery to her eight and nine-year-old neighbors who plot to become her friends when they learn she too owns a Japanese doll.

Little Plum

Five naive English children, thrown on their own in a French inn, find themselves surrounded by mysterious and violent activities.

A Novel

The Greengage Summer

Black Narcissus. (Film Edition.) [With Illustrations.].

Black Narcissus

Three unforgettable novels from a New York Times–bestselling author—including Black Narcissus, which “bears comparison with A Passage to India” (Arthur Koestler). With Black Narcissus, her novel of five nuns in a remote Himalayan convent struggling against nature—both physical and human—Rumer Godden established her impeccable literary reputation. TheNew York Times wrote of her work: “Her craftsmanship is always sure; her understanding of character is compassionate and profound; her prose is pure, delicate, and gently witty.” Having spent her formative years in colonial India, she would continue to return to that setting for inspiration in several subsequent novels, each of them “beautifully and simply wrought by a woman of depth and sensitivity” (Los Angeles Times). Black Narcissus: Led by Sister Clodagh, the youngest Mother Superior in the history of their order, the European Sisters of the Servants of Mary take up residence in an abandoned palace in the foothills of the Himalayas, where an Indian general once housed his harem. The sisters hope to establish a school and clinic to combat superstition, ignorance, and disease. But the isolation and mountain altitude, the ghosts and lurid history, and one young nun’s unhealthy obsession with their royal benefactor’s agent, Mr. Dean, threaten to undermine the best intentions of the purest hearts. Black Narcissus was made into an Academy Award–winning film starring Deborah Kerr and directed by Michael Powell. “A very remarkable novel.” —The Observer Breakfast with the Nikolides: As the Nazi juggernaut rolls through occupied France, Louise Poole is forced to flee Paris with her two daughters and return to East Bengal and the husband she left. Despite Louise’s hatred of rural India, eleven-year-old Emily is intrigued by her exotic new home, left free to explore—and enjoy the hospitality of her glamorous neighbors, the Nikolides. But as the cracks in her parents’ marriage become more obvious, an act of thoughtless cruelty ultimately shatters the tenuous bonds of family, violently disrupting the lives of the Pooles and the community. “A fascinating book . . . It is absorbing and as original . . . as Black Narcissus.” —Kirkus Reviews The River: The Second World War seems very far away for eleven-year-old Harriet, the daughter of a British businessman, and her home in Bengal, India, along the Ganges River—until the arrival of a handsome wounded soldier. Harriet is entranced by their new neighbor, Captain John, but unprepared for the rush of unfamiliar emotions he stirs up in her: longing, jealousy, and infatuation. Inspired by the author’s personal experiences growing up in India, The River is an evocative and bittersweet coming of age story. The River was made into a film directed by Jean Renoir. “So intense, so quietly demanding of attention, that at the time there will be nothing in your thoughts but a small girl in India, and the people and places that were her world.” —Saturday Review

Black Narcissus, Breakfast with the Nikolides, and The River

The India Novels Volume One

Discover some very special dolls in this beautiful collection containing some of Rumer Godden's best-loved stories. Perfect for new readers or for reading aloud, this classic collection will introduce a whole new generation to the magical secret life of dolls.

The Fairy Doll & Other Tales from the Dolls' House

Gloriously illustrated by Jane Ray, and with a ribbon marker and a foreword by Jacqueline Wilson, this beautiful hardback Macmillan Classics edition of Rumer Godden's The Dolls' House, which was first published in 1947, is a truly special gift to treasure. Tottie is a loving little wooden doll who lives with her family in a shoebox. The doll family are owned by two sisters, Emily and Charlotte, and are very happy, except for one thing: they long for a proper home. To their delight, their wish comes true when Emily and Charlotte fix up a Victorian dolls' house - just for them. It's perfect. But then a new arrival starts to wreak havoc in the dolls' house. For Marchpane might be a wonderfully beautiful doll, but she is also terribly cruel. And she always gets her own way . . .

Stories

Swans & Turtles

By the author of Black Narcissus With a foreword by JACQUELINE WILSON 'A masterpiece of construction and utterly realistically convincing...Rumer Godden's writing is admired for many qualities . . . but I think her greatest strength is her accurate, unsentimental portrayal of children. Lovejoy, Tip and Sparkey were so real to me that they have stayed alive in my head for more than fifty years' Jacqueline Wilson A captivating classic novel of a poor girl striving to create beauty among the bombsites of post-war London. Someone has been digging up the private garden in the Square. Miss Angela Chesney of the Garden Committee is sure that a gang of local boys is to blame, but her sister, Olivia, isn't so sure. She wonders why the neighbourhood children - 'sparrows', she calls them - have to be locked out: don't they have a right to enjoy the garden too? Nobody has any idea what sends Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of 'good garden earth'. Still less do they imagine where their investigation will lead them - to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and, at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.

A Virago Modern Classic

An Episode of Sparrows

When he inadvertently captures the tiger that has been terrorizing the neighborhood, a poor potter not only gains fame and fortune but the unwanted honor of leading the Raja's army against an invading enemy.

The Valiant Chatti-maker

Four evocative and moving works of fiction set in India from the New York Times–bestselling author of Black Narcissus—including her final novel. Having spent her formative years in colonial India, British novelist Rumer Godden would continue to return to that setting for inspiration throughout her career—from her best known work about five nuns in a Himalayan convent, Black Narcissus, to her final novel, Cromartie vs. the God Shiva. The four novels in this volume each reveal in their own way Godden’s “magical skill in conjuring up with a few suggestive details a veritable panorama of Indian life” (The New York Times). And, like all of Godden’s fiction, they “have one important thing in common: They are beautifully and simply wrought by a woman of depth and sensitivity” (Los Angeles Times). Cromartie vs. the God Shiva: In Godden’s final novel, inspired by a real event, the theft of a precious statuette of the Hindu god Shiva from a hotel in India leads to love, intrigue, death, and legal complications. Even as Sydney Cromartie, the Canadian now in possession of the statue, fights to retain ownership, British barrister Michael Dean is dispatched to Patna Hall on the Coromandel Coast (previously appearing in Godden’s Coromandel Sea Change), where everyone is a suspect, including proprietress Auntie Sanni, to solve the mystery. “A complex tale, fraught with mystery . . . Readers who enjoy far-away cultures will find this tale a treat.” —Library Journal The Lady and the Unicorn: Battling poverty and prejudice, the three “half-caste” daughters of an Englishman and an Indian mother live with their widowed father and “Auntie” in a crumbling mansion in 1930s Calcutta. Tough-minded Belle Lemarchant is determined to improve her lot in life, while her twin, Rosa, looks for escape in romance, and their younger, darker-skinned sibling, Blanche, wanders the halls and grounds, communing with ghosts. A powerful coming-of-age story in a society blinded by caste divisions, Godden’s novel is a heartbreaking human drama. “One of the delights of reading a Rumer Godden novel is the magnetic pull of the exotic settings, affecting readers and characters alike.” —Newsday The Peacock Spring: When Una, fifteen, and her twelve-year-old sister, Halcyon, are summoned from their English boarding school to join their diplomat father in New Delhi, they encounter an exotic new world, racial prejudice, and a calculating Eurasian governess, whose relationship with their father seems troubling in its intimacy. When Una becomes friends with Ravi, a young Indian gardener, their forbidden attraction threatens to end in scandal and disaster. “Ms. Godden . . . has a wonderful way with fictional children, tender and true and never sentimental.” —The New York Times Coromandel Sea Change: With an election coming, business is brisk at Patna Hall, a resort hotel on the lush Coromandel Coast in southern India. Anglo-Indian hotel owner Auntie Sanni has her hands full with Indian politicians, British diplomats, a journalist involved in espionage, a woman of mystery, and an English couple on their honeymoon whose new marriage is strained by their conflicting responses to India. As the nearby Coromandel Sea is teeming with sharks, so is Patna Hall brimming with adultery, blackmail, and intrigue. “[A] sense of timelessness reminiscent of E. M. Forster.” —The Times

Cromartie vs. the God Shiva, The Lady and the Unicorn, The Peacock Spring, and Coromandel Sea Change

The India Novels Volume Two

Three sisters battle poverty and prejudice in 1930s India in this heart-wrenching tale from a New York Times–bestselling novelist. Life is difficult for the three Lemarchant sisters in the latter years of the British Raj. Born of two cultures and rejected by both—the “half-caste” daughters of an Englishman and an Indian mother—twins Belle and Rosa and their younger sibling, Blanche, live with their widowed father and “Auntie” in an apartment in a crumbling mansion in Calcutta. Having grown to young womanhood in poverty—the result of their father’s indolence and society’s intolerance—tough-minded Belle is determined to improve her lot in life, even if it means compromising her principles and her pride. Her beautiful twin, Rosa, however, dreams of a different, grander escape and foolishly puts her faith in love. For Blanche, the entire world is the decaying estate the Lemarchants share with other Anglo-Indian outcasts. Rejected by her own siblings due to the darkness of her skin, the lonely little girl wanders the halls and grounds, enjoying the fantasy of a phantom pet while communing with ghosts only the purest of souls can see. An extraordinary novel rich in color and heartbreaking human drama, The Lady and the Unicorn is the poignant tale of one family’s struggle to make a future in a society blinded by prejudice and divided by caste. A powerful story of coming-of-age and coming to terms, it is a masterful fiction from one of the preeminent British authors of the twentieth century. This ebook features an illustrated biography of the author including rare images from the Rumer Godden Literary Estate.

The Lady and the Unicorn

The disappearance of a majestic Thoroughbred unites a community in 1930s India in “one of the greatest horse books ever written. . . . Moving, and highly original” (Lauren St. John, author of The White Giraffe). In Calcutta, India, John Quillan cares for racehorses belonging to wealthy owners, and Mother Morag, who lives just down the road and leads a group of nuns working with Calcutta’s poor, loves to watch these beautiful animals in action. Now, a new Thoroughbred, Dark Invader, has been shipped from England, rejected after a losing season, in which he didn’t live up to his owner’s expectations. A beautiful creature with rippling muscles and satin skin, Dark Invader is gently handled with love in his new home, and before long, he is poised for victory in the Viceroy Cup, the country’s most famous race. But just days before the event, he disappears—and a desperate effort to find him begins. From Rumer Godden—the award-winning author of such classics as The Greengage Summer and Black Narcissus, as well as a number of beloved children’s books—The Dark Horse is a moving and suspenseful story set in a fascinating historical era.

Rumer Godden

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