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Books

An utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel

The story is negligible and the denouement ridiculous, but Susanna Johnston's Lettice & Victoria will have you chuckling

4 January 2014

9:00 AM

4 January 2014

9:00 AM

Lettice & Victoria Susanna Johnston

Arcadia, pp.166, £12.99, ISBN: 9781909807228

This utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel is something from another age. There are elements of A Handful of Dust (the young girl trapped reading Dickens), of Rebecca (the undervalued companion of a cantankerous employer), of fable and fairy tale and even of Restoration comedy.

Victoria, young, pretty, big-bosomed, is the companion of a blind man of letters who lives in considerable style in a house in Italy.

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