At Mrs Lippincote's (Virago Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Taylor (Author), Valerie Martin (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2006 | Series: Virago Modern Classics (Book 278)

Mrs. Lippincote's house, with its mahogany furniture and yellowing photographs, stands as a reminder of all the certainties that have vanished with the advent of war. Temporarily, this is home for Julia, who has joined her husband Roddy at the behest of the RAF. Although she can accept the pomposities of service life, Julia's honesty and sense of humor prevent her from taking her role as seriously as her husband might wish; for Roddy, merely love cannot suffice—he needs homage as well as admiration. And Julia, while she may be a most unsatisfactory officer's wife, is certainly no hypocrite.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A book for the epicure, who will delight in its deftness, its congression, its under- and overtones' L.P. HARTLEY 'One of the most underarted novelists of the 20th century', Antonia Fraser 'Elizabeth Taylor had the keenest eye and ear for the pain lurking behind a genteel demeanour' Paul Bailey, Guardian 'Taylor excels in conveying the tragicomic poignancy of the everyday' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Bowen - soul-sisters all' Anne Tyler 'Always intelligent, often subversive and never dull, Elizabeth Taylor is the thinking person's dangerous housewife' Valerie Martin, Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 'Sophisticated, sensitive and brilliantly amusing, with a kind of stripped, piercing feminine wit' Rosamund Lehmann

About the Author

Elizabeth Taylor (1912-1975) was born and educated in Reading. On leaving school she worked as a governess & later in a library. She lived much of her married life in the village of Penn, Bucks. In 1984 ANGEL was selected by the Book Marketing Council's 'Best Novels of Our Time'.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Virago UK (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844083098
• ISBN-13: 978-1844083091
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The war at home, October 19, 2006

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: At Mrs Lippincote's (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

The grossly neglected English novelist Elizabeth Taylor once admitted in an autobiographical note that she enjoyed reading novels "where practically nothing ever happens." Such is the world of her own fiction, as beautifully demonstrated in this her first novel, published in 1945, which shows how much emotionally can happen in a world of practical inaction.

Billeted temporarily to the village and home of the eponymous Mrs. Lippincote to be near her husband, an officer in the RAF, Julia Davenant is expected to be a model officer's wife, serving meals to her husband's commanding officers, joining in the fun had by his fellows and their wives, and behaving so as not to attract attention or to embarrass him. Reminded of these obligations by the model of the domestic Lippincotes that surrounds her in her new home, she chooses instead to escape into an inner world of observation and intellectual reflection as she cares for her husband, her sickly son, and her husband's censorious "odd woman" cousin Eleanor who serves as both company and as foil for the nonconformist Julia. Little happens for a long time in this novel from a practical standpoint though much happens within Julia's and Eleanor's consciousnesses (through which most of this novel is focalized) to prepare us for the explosion at the end of the novel that changes their lives forever, a formal device taylor often replicated in her later novels.

This early work shows Taylor's debts to her friend Ivy Compton-Burnett more clearly than in her later work: as with Burnett, more is indicated through the undercurrents of dialgue than is explicitly said. so that we must interpret (as the characters themselves both do and do not) what is really happening belwo the surface of their comments. This is also one of the most explicitly feminist of Taylor's novels: Julia's and Eleanor's socially stifled situations seem to be that bemoaned by Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontė's classic novel, which is often mentioned within the text as a kind of counterpoint to this novel. Like all of Taylor's books, AT MRS. LIPPINCOTE'S has a surface facility that belies its thematic and structural complexities; by the end the novel seems to have rushed by, yet when you stop to consider the significance of the young Miss Lippincote's unannounced visits to the house (and the effect they have on the family), or the contrasts among Julia's husband, his solicitous and Brontė-loving Wing Commander who nurtures a crush on Julia, and the raffish and sexually ambiguous Cockney living in their village she knows from London, the meanings of the novel multiply exponentially.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Other Elizabeth Taylor, January 11, 2008

By 

Kate Smart "Private" (Private) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At Mrs Lippincote's (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

I was reading the Atlantic Monthly which featured an article about Elizabeth Taylor; an author I had never heard of. I have since read Mrs. Lippincote and enjoyed it so much. The writing is intelligent, warm, and funny. It is deliciously English, and considering it was written in the 1940's, surprisingly modern. I am going to read everything this woman wrote - what a pleasant surprise, and I am so grateful to the Atlantic Monthly for making people aware of this fantastic writer.

5.0 out of 5 stars Lives of Quiet Desperation, January 10, 2012

By 

Maren Robinson (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: At Mrs Lippincote's (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Elizebeth Taylor has a way with words, a way of phrasing sentiments one has felt but never expressed so well. She is splendid at dissecting the scenes of ordinary life with all their frustration and boredom. In At Mrs. Lippincote's she shines a brilliant lamp on the lives of Julia Davenant and her RAF husband Roddy, their son Oliver and Roddy's cousin Eleanor. Stationed out of London during World War II, they stay at the furnished home of Mrs. Lippincote, but the strangeness of living in someone else's home seems to reflect the strangeness and drabness of the trappings of ordinary life: a dirty white coat, a child's illness, or a cheap porcelain swan.

Some of the best scenes revolve around the way the child Oliver blends the world of the books he reads with the world around him, freely mixing fantasy with dull reality.

She reveals the inner lives of her characters in short scenes and much like life does not attempt tidy resolutions but allows her stories to breath in glorious messiness. At the same time, her own choice of words has the precision of a scalpel pulling back layers with deft flicks of her wrist. She may not be to the taste of the reader who demands a lot of plot, but for those who enjoy subtle portraits of characters, she is well worth being rediscovered.