The Beggar Maid [Hardcover]

Alice Munro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1979

Born into the back streets of a small Canadian town, Rose battled incessantly with her practical and shrewd step-mother, Flo, who cowed her with tales of her own past and warnings of the dangerous world outside. But Rose was ambitious - she won a scholarship and left for Toronto where she married Patrick. She was his Beggar Maid, 'meek and voluptuous, with her shy white feet', and he was her knight, content to sit and adore her...

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

" Whether Alice Munro's The Beggar Maid is a collection of stories or a new kind of novel I'm not quite sure, but whatever it is, it's wonderful. The psychological precision...is a delight, and the startling twists -- the unexpected leaps in time, the transformation of familiar characters -- they make the book what books ought to be, a little wild, a little mysterious." -- John Gardner
In this exhilarating series of interweaving stories, Alice Munro re-creates the evolving bond -- one that is both constricting and empowering -- between two women in the coupe of almost forty years. One is Flo, practical, suspicious of other people's airs, at times dismayingly vulgar. The other is Rose, Flo's stepdaughter, a clumsy, shy girl who somehow-in spite of Flo's ridicule and ghastly warnings -- leaves the small town she grew up in to achieve her own equivocal success in the larger world.
" The stories are absolutely wonderful-every word she writes is interesting." -- Alice Adams
" The best stories of the year." -- "The Nation" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: Random House Inc (T); First edition (October 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394506820
• ISBN-13: 978-0394506821
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,361,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alice Munro grew up in Wingham, Ontario, and attended the University of Western Ontario. She has published eleven previous books.During her distinguished career she has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the W.H. Smith Prize, the National Book Circle Critics Award, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, the Lannan Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and the Rea Award for the Short Story. In Canada, she has won the Governor General's Award, the Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award, and the Libris Award.Alice Munro and her husband divide their time between Clinton, Ontario, and Comox, British Columbia.