3 Novels : The Blue Flower, The Bookshop, Offshore [Boxed Set] [Paperback]

Penelope Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1999

Gathered together for the first time are three of Penelope Fitzgerald's most beloved novels: The Blue Flower, The Bookshop, and Offshore. The Blue Flower: Chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the eleven best books of 1997, this magical novel recounts the curious obsession of the Romantic poet Novalis for his one "true philosophy" -- the plain and simple twelve-year-old Sophie. "A masterpiece. . . How does she do it?" (A. S. Byatt) "Quite astonishing . . . Her greatest triumph" (New York Times Book Review). The Bookshop: In 1959, Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop -- the only bookshop -- in the seaside town of Hardborough. She must contend with a leaky roof, a poltergeist, and, what's more, ruthless opposition from the self-proclaimed first lady of culture, Violet Gamart. "A brilliant little book" (Boston Globe). Offshore: Winner of the Booker Prize, this acclaimed novel features an eccentric cast of characters living in houseboats on the Thames, rising and falling with the great river's tides. "The novelistic equivalent of a Turner watercolor" (Washington Post).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Since 1977, Penelope Fitzgerald has been quietly coming out with small, perfect devastations of human hope and inhuman (i.e., all-too-human) behavior. This special boxed set comprises her two prize winners, The Blue Flower and Offshore , and her tragicomedy of provincial manners, The Bookshop.

The Blue Flower is the story of Friedrich von Hardenberg--Fritz, to his intimates--a young man of the late 18th century who is destined to become one of Germany's great romantic poets. In just over 200 pages, Fitzgerald creates a complete world of family, friends, and lovers, but also an exhilarating evocation of the Romantic era in all its political turmoil, intellectual voracity, and moral ambiguity. A profound exploration of genius, The Blue Flower is also a charming, wry, and witty look at domestic life.

Offshore possesses perfect, very odd pitch. In the wittiest and most melancholy of prose, Penelope Fitzgerald limns the lives of "creatures neither of firm land nor water"--a group of barge-dwellers in London's Battersea Reach, circa 1961. One man, a marine artist whose commissions have dropped off since the war, is attempting to sell his decrepit craft before it sinks. Another, a dutiful businessman with a bored, mutinous wife, knows he should be landlocked but remains drawn to the muddy Thames. A third, Maurice, a male prostitute, doesn't even protest when a criminal acquaintance begins to use his barge as a depot for stolen goods: "The dangerous and the ridiculous were necessary to his life, otherwise tenderness would overwhelm him."

The Bookshop unfolds in a tiny Sussex seaside town, which by 1959 is virtually cut off from the outside English world. Postwar peace and plenty having passed it by, Hardborough is defined chiefly by what it doesn't have. It does have, however, plenty of observant inhabitants, most of whom are keen to see Florence Green's new bookshop fail.

In these three novels, readers will find works of fine prose, fierce intelligence, and perceptive characterization.

About the Author

Penelope Fitzgerald wrote many books small in size but enormous in popular and critical acclaim over the past two decades. Over 300,000 copies of her novels are in print, and profiles of her life appeared in both The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. In 1979, her novel OFFSHORE won Britain's Booker Prize, and in 1998 she won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for THE BLUE FLOWER.

Though Fitzgerald embarked on her literary career when she was in her 60's, her career was praised as "the best argument.. for a publishing debut made late in life" (New York Times Book Review). She told the New York Times Magazine, "In all that time, I could have written books and I didn't. I think you can write at any time of your life."

Dinitia Smith, in her New York Times Obituary of May 3, 2000, quoted Penelope Fitzgerald from 1998 as saying, "I have remained true to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?"

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Mariner Books; The Blue Flower, The Bookshop, Offshore September edition (September 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618007113
• ISBN-13: 978-0618007110
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,232,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The beauty of economy, July 25, 2000

By 

Murray Tong (Hamilton, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 3 Novels : The Blue Flower, The Bookshop, Offshore [Boxed Set] (Paperback)

The world has lost a treasure in Penelope Fitzgerald, who died earlier this year at the age of 83. She had lived for so many years by the time she began writing (her first novel was published when she was 60) that she could see what was important and what wasn't, and she learned never to waste a word. So we have novels like The Bookshop, a powerful but pinched novel that stemmed a lot of its own force, and Offshore, an absolutely perfect work that said a lifetime's worth in only 140 pages.

The Bookshop, Fitzgerald's second novel, concerns Florence Green's struggle to open a bookshop in her small town, and the gentle opposition against the idea by the townspeople. There are great moments of truth and beauty, but often the Fitzgerald limits her own explorations, as if she put on blinders while writing. I love her economic style, how she says so much with so little, but in this case, she merely says "enough" with so little.

With Offshore, written the year after The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald has truly opened up, creating a whole tucked-away world---the houseboats of the Thames River---we feel we've visited our entire lives. It's full of moments of little truths: the cab driver who kindly takes Nenna home, the children selling antique tiles to a curmudgeonly storekeeper, the thing that drives Richard's wife away---and what brings her back. I haven't had the pleasure of reading The Blue Flower, but I promise myself that it's next on my list.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fitzgerald's little gems, January 18, 2008

By 

Susan Feathers (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Novels: The Blue Flower; The Bookshop; Offshore (Paperback)

Penelope Fitzgerald should be remembered for her word sculptures of characters as real as a family member. In the most concise manner, yet with startlingly vivid language, Fitzgerald takes us into the little worlds of neighbors and small towns. She draws her characters into tight fitting relationships as we really experience them. I found myself deeply engrossed in the lives of families living on the Thames in Offshore. Fitzgerald explores how we get "stuck" when changes around us overwhelm our ability to transform our lives for new conditions. In The Bookshop I resonated with a single woman who manages to start her own business only to have her dream subverted by a community's small mindedness and jealousy. I read these books because I am a writer. Studying with Penelope Fitsgerald as a reader is the best instruction in the business.

Excellent literature; highly recommended for character readers and for budding writers.

Susan Feathers Williams
writeforchange.com