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Harriet Said...

A Virago Modern Classic
  • Author
    • Beryl Bainbridge
Format
Regular price £9.99
Regular price Sale price £9.99
'Harriet Said is a highly plotted horror tale that turns the "Obstinate Questionings" of puberty into deadly weapons' NEW YORK TIMES

'An extremely original and disconcerting story' DAILY TELEGRAPH


'A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect' SUNDAY TIMES

A girl returns from boarding school to her sleepy Merseyside hometown and waits to be reunited with her childhood friend, Harriet, chief architect of all their past mischief. She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches and encounters 'the Tsar' - almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive.

Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives - and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences.

A gripping portrayal of adolescent transgression, Beryl Bainbridge's classic first novel remains as subversive today as when it was written.

Not available for shipping to the following countries:

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  • Published: Dec 06 2012
  • Pages: 192
  • 196 x 126mm
  • ISBN: 9781844088607
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Press Reviews

  • Daily Telegraph
    An extremely original and disconcerting story
  • Sunday Times
    A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect
  • Evening Standard
    Compelling, horrifying, dramatic . . . [a] Molotov cocktail of teenage insecurity and dangerously partial understanding of maturity
  • Gail Godwin

    New York Times
    Harriet Said ... is a highly plotted horror tale that turns the "Obstinate Questionings" of puberty into deadly weapons
  • Publishers Weekly
    A chilling novel of sheer horror
  • Denver Post
    Strange and terrifying
  • Kirkus Reviews
    An expertly conceived and consummated horror story . . . The author has made it seem as likely as it is unnatural and insidious
  • Washington PostBook World
    Chilling, exciting . . . remarkably convincing
  • Daily Telegraph
    An extremely original and disconcerting story
  • Sunday Times
    A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect
  • Evening Standard
    Compelling, horrifying, dramatic . . . [a] Molotov cocktail of teenage insecurity and dangerously partial understanding of maturity