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Slammerkin (Virago Modern Classics)

Slammerkin (Virago Modern Classics)

by EmmaDonoghue (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2001

    $3.80
Synopsis

Set in London and Monmouth in the late 1700s, this is an extraordinary novel about Mary Saunders, the young daughter of a poor seamstress. Mary hungers greedily for fine clothes and ribbons, as people of her class do for food and warmth. It's a hunger that lures her into prostitution at the age of thirteen. Mary is thrown out by her distraught mother when she gets pregnant and almost dies on the dangerous streets of London. Her saviour is Doll - a prostitute. Mary roams London freely with Doll, selling her body to all manner of 'cullies', dressed whorishly in colourful, gaudy dresses with a painted red smile. Faced with bad debts and threats upon her life she eventually flees to Monmouth, her mother's hometown, where she attempts to start a new life as a maid in Mrs Jones's house. But Mary soon discovers that she can't escape her past and just how dearly people like her pay for yearnings not fitting to their class in society...

$3.80

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1 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 432
 Edition: First printing of this edition
 Publisher: Virago
Published: 07 Jun 2001
ISBN 10: 186049899X
ISBN 13: 9781860498992
Prizes: Shortlisted for Irish Times Literary Prize,Irish Fiction 2001.

Media Reviews
What attracted me was the subtle way this girl, who feels herself to be a lost and even wicked soul, is almost tamed by her circumstances - but never quite, never really losing that restlessness, frustration and ambition which has marked her from the beginning. There's no cheating in the end, no happy neat ending, but instead a rawness which feels real and deeply satisfying. I'm sure it will be hugely enjoyed and I wish it every luck * Margaret Forster *
Strangers might remember a trip to Monmouth to see a girl hang, but who would spare a thought for the whos and hows and whys? Mary Saunders asks herself on the way to the scaffold. Emma Donoghue has taken the scant facts of Mary's short life in the 1760 * No rags to riches tale here, but nor does the author allow the brutal circumstances of Mary's life to swamp her colourful and richly textured narrative. Mary is full of spark and cheek; her eye is sharp to the hypocrisies of privilege and religion, her sp *
That said, Emma Donoghue's gifts as a storyteller are considerable: her unsparing accounts of small and large events, a wealth of detail and a wonderfully rich and fluent language makes this a vivid and moving slice from the underbelly of 18th-century life. * Ruth Petrie, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW *
Author Bio
Emma Donoghue is an Irish novelist, playwright and historian. Her second novel HOOD won the American Library Association Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Award in 1997. She is currently adapting her novel STIR-FRY for Horizonline Films (Ireland).