Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
England, 1936. After the recent death of George V, the nation has a new king, Edward VIII. But for all the confident pomp and ceremony of the accession, it is a turbulent time. Terrible poverty and unemployment affect many, but trouble few among the ruling elite; for others, Oswald Mosley's New Party, which offers a version of the fascism on the rise in Germany, seems to offer the vision of the future. Nineteen-year-old May Thomas has just disembarked at Liverpool Docks after making the long journey by steamer from Barbados to escape the constraints of her sugar-plantation childhood. Her first job as a secretary and chauffeuse to Sir Philip Blunt, Chief Whip in Baldwin's Conservative government, will open her eyes to the upper echelons of British society ... The unlikely friendship she forms with Evangeline Nettlefold, American god-daughter of the Chief Whip's wife and an old school friend of Wallis Simpson, will see her through family upheavals including the shocking, sudden loss of her mother; but more significant for May, the Blunts' son Rupert has an Oxford University friend, Julian, a young man of conscience for whom, despite all barriers of class, she cannot help but fall. Secrets, hidden truths, undeclared loves, unspoken sympathies and covert complicities are everywhere - biggest and most dangerous of them all, the truth about the new King's relationship with a married woman, and the silent horror that few in Britain dare voice: the increasing inevitability of another world war ...
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Showing 8 featured editions. View all 8 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2 |
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
Abdication: a novel
2012, Atria Books, Atria
in English
- Doubleday large print home library ed.
1620900068 9781620900062
|
eeee
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
4
Abdication: a novel
2012, Atria Books
in English
- 1st Atria Books hardcover ed.
1451658834 9781451658835
|
eeee
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
5 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
6 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
7 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
8 |
eeee
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Originally published: London: Bloomsbury, 2012.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Work Description
In a tale set against a backdrop of pre-World War II turbulence in England and Edward VIII's scandalous affair, a fatherless chauffeur shares an undeclared love with a complex Oxford undergraduate, a housekeeper hides her Nazi sympathies and a woman struggles with escalating tensions in her friendship with Wallace Simpson.
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?December 8, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
March 1, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
September 18, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
September 9, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
March 15, 2012 | Created by LC Bot | import new book |