Flowers on the Grass

Monica Dickens

сент. 2011 г. · A&C Black

Об электронной книге

Orphaned at the age of fourteen, Daniel is brought up by a distant and cold relative. After his expulsion from Eton his ashamed guardian, in an attempt to bury the scandal, sends the troubled boy to another distant relative in Italy. There, Daniel has little responsibility and a lot of freedom to study art and enjoy a bohemian lifestyle. But when WWII erupts he does not shun responsibility and comes back to England to join the army. During his service he meets Jane who adores Daniel's rebellious nature and falls deeply in love with him.

Unfortunately, Daniel's chance for stability and domestic happiness is shattered when Jane unexpectedly dies. After that sudden blow Daniel abandons his home and work and sets off to find the freedom and happiness he experienced briefly before he was orphaned.

In the Flowers on the Grass, first published in 1949, we follow Daniel on his physical and spiritual wanderings through the accounts of the characters he encounters on his journey.

Об авторе

Great grand daughter to Charles Dickens, Monica (1915-1992) was born into an upper middle class family. Disillusioned with the world she was brought up in - she was expelled from St Paul's Girls' School in London for throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge - Dickens then decided to go into service, despite coming from the privileged class; her experiences as a cook and general servant would form the nucleus of her first book, One Pair Of Hands in 1939.

Dickens married an American Navy officer, Roy O. Stratton, and spent much of her adult life in Massachusetts and Washington D.C., but the majority of writing continued to be set in Britain. Her book of 1953, No More Meadows, reflected her work with the NSPCC and she later helped to found the American Samaritans in Massachusetts. Between 1970 and 1971 she wrote a series of children's books known as The Worlds End Series which dealt with rescuing animals, and to some extent children. After the death of her husband in 1985, Dickens returned to England where she continued to write until her death aged 77.