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Books

Why did Penelope Fitzgerald start writing so late? 

A new biography by Hermione Lee is full of interest but also holes

2 November 2013

9:00 AM

2 November 2013

9:00 AM

Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life Hermione Lee

Chatto, pp.508, £25, ISBN: 9780701184957

‘Experiences aren’t given us to be “got over”, otherwise they would hardly be experiences.’ The opening sentence of the first draft of The Bookshop, published in 1978 when Penelope Fitzgerald was 62, didn’t survive in the finished version, but its author had found her voice, and, in a way, her subject.

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