Miss Peabody’s Inheritance (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Monica Elizabeth Knight
- First Published: 1983
- Type of Work: Comedy of manners
- Time of Work: The 1980’s
- Setting: London, England, and Australia
- Principal Characters: Dorothy Peabody, Diana Hopewell, Arabella Thorne, Miss Edgely, Miss Snowdon, Gwendaline Manners, Debbie Frome
- Genres: Long fiction, Frame story, Fiction of manners
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Traveling or travelers, Homosexuality or homosexuals, Authors or writers, Literature, Social issues, Schools or school life, 1980’s, Emotions, Jealousy, envy, or resentment, Novelists, England or English people, Lesbianism or lesbians, Creative process, London, Single people, Loneliness, Letters, Vacations, Students or student life, Middle age, Australia or Australians, Office employees, Erotica
- Locales: London, England, Australia
The Novel
Dorothy Peabody, a middle-aged spinster in London, has sent a fan letter to Diana Hopewell, an Australian romance writer, who has responded with a copious, if irregular, stream of letters. The correspondence breathes life into Miss Peabody, whose job is tawdry, and whose personal life is smothered by a bedridden, bossy mother. The letters contain the draft and working notes of a novel in progress. It looks at first glance like a tale of an outwardly very proper trio of spinsters. The writer’s predilection, however, is clearly for simmering sensuality. Miss...
[The entire page is 2237 words long]
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