Author:Margaret Oliphant,Elisabeth Jay,Elisabeth Jay,Elisabeth Jay

Returning home to tend her widowed father Dr Marjoribanks, Lucilla soon launches herself into Carlingford society, aiming to raise the tone with her select Thursday evening parties. Optimistic, resourceful and blithely unimpeded by self-doubt, Lucilla is a superior being in every way, not least in relation to men. 'A tour de force...full of wit, surprises and intrigue...We can imagine Jane Austen reading MISS MARJORIBANKS with enjoyment and approval in the Elysian Fields' - Q. D. Leavis. Leavisdeclared Oliphant's heroine Lucilla to be the missing link in Victorian literature between Jane Austen's Emma and George Eliot's Dorothea Brook and 'more entertaining, more impressive and more likeable than either'.
England's most important living poet
—— TimesHill so entirely eclipses most of his contemporaries that it seems meaningless to rank in relation to them. Trumpets should be blown, garlands made ... loquacious, playful, wildly comic ... poignant. His greatness is as certain as that of the poets he invokes
—— Daily TelegraphWhatever the densities of Hill's expression, or the powerful impacted forces in his syntax and rhythms, this poetry achieves a strength, memorability and precision beyond the abilities of any other poet writing in English
—— TLSIt's hard to overpraise Mary Wesley's novel...so tingling and spry with life that put a mirror to the book and I'll almost swear it will mist over with the breath of the five young cousins
—— The TimesA reading experience that evokes contemporary China with absurdist exactitude
—— Financial TimesSome of the best passages are, like this, sensuous and plainly descriptive. There is a fantastic mini-essay on the aphrodisiac qualities of the sea cucumber
—— Toby Litt , GuardianWell-crafted, often hilarious and surreal
—— Big IssueAn amusing, charming read with a satirical edge
—— Metro