Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    According to Queeney: A Novel
    Unavailable
    According to Queeney: A Novel
    Unavailable
    According to Queeney: A Novel
    Ebook270 pages3 hours

    According to Queeney: A Novel

    By Beryl Bainbridge

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    This historical novel set during the eighteenth century recounts the tumultuous final years of famed English lexicographer and poet Samuel Johnson.

    In 1764, Britain’s greatest man of letters—the writer of the first English dictionary—shut himself in his room and refused to come out. Exhausted from working on an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, Samuel Johnson had fallen into a deep depression. He refused to eat and only opened his door to cry out incomprehensible phrases or empty his chamber pot. Finally, a priest was able to lure the scholar out of confinement, and, as he did, Johnson’s friend Henry Thrales arrived. Shocked by Johnson’s fit of madness, Thrales promptly whisked the man away for recuperation at a country mansion south of London.
     
    Thus began one of the happiest periods of Johnson’s life. At the Thrales residence in Streatham, Johnson regained his sanity and engaged in family life. He selected books for the estate’s library, joked around at parties, and became close to Thrales’s wife, Hester. But as the years passed, the affection between Johnson and Hester developed into a dark romantic affair, the Thrales’s daughter grew up and became aware of her mother’s emotional unavailability, and Johnson’s passions and eccentricities led to cumbersome moral and spiritual dilemmas.
     
    With chapter titles taken from entries in Johnson’s legendary dictionary, lauded British author Beryl Bainbridge paints a well-rounded portrait of an extraordinary man and his all-too-human experiences. Written from the perspective of the Thrales’s daughter, According to Queeney heightens fact with fiction, sincerity with irony, and humor with despair. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, it is a captivating account of the Georgian era, lending modern insight to British history.

     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateNov 1, 2016
    ISBN9781504039970
    Unavailable
    According to Queeney: A Novel
    Author

    Beryl Bainbridge

    Dame Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) is acknowledged as one of the greatest British novelists of her time. She was the author of two travel books, five plays, and seventeen novels, five of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, including Master Georgie, which went on to win the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award. She was also awarded the Whitbread Literary Award twice, for Injury Time and Every Man for Himself. In 2011, a special Man Booker “Best of Beryl” Prize was awarded in her honor, voted for by members of the public.   Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theater to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said . . ., was written around this time, although it was rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent.” Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood and An Awfully Big Adventure, and many of her early novels retell her Liverpudlian childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for the screen, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theater and was made into a film by Mike Newell, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys, a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie, which follows Liverpudlians during the Crimean War. Her no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following. Bainbridge regularly contributed articles and reviews to the Guardian, Observer, and Spectator, among others, and she was the Oldie’s longstanding theater critic. In 2008, she appeared at number twenty-six in a list of the fifty most important novelists since 1945 compiled by the Times (London). At the time of her death, Bainbridge was working on a new novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously.  

    Related to According to Queeney

    Related ebooks

    Psychological Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Mr. Rain Jacket

      May 20, 2019

      Mr. Rain Jacket
      10 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Oct 16, 2023

      What a thing of joy is a new Francis Spufford novel. Golden Hill, his debut, was a transporting piece of historical fiction that captured life in early New York in all its quirk and contingence, and deservedly won a bag of awards. His second, Light P

      3 min read

    • Article

      Bookshop Cafes

      Mar 3, 2022

      Bookshop Cafes
      1 min read

    • Article

      California Dreaming

      Mar 31, 2020

      Rishi Reddi’s first novel, Passage West, is an audacious piece of work. On the one hand, the author situates her story in a California most of us won’t recognize: the Imperial Valley early in the previous century, when South Asians worked the irrigat

      2 min read

    • Article

      Lover of Cars

      Sep 12, 2023

      all those Stingers Jaguars Tiguans Fiat 500sand San Remo Green Beemer i4s I love allthose model numbers numb-sexy like cashmerethrown over a dinosaur skeleton like a robot’skiss I fell asleep watching an Audi documentaryand dreamt of a low low R8 sco

      1 min read

    • Article

      Jenkins

      Feb 4, 2021

      Jenkins
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Adam Dalva

      Dec 14, 2020

      Anyone who teaches creative writing knows that our students bring us to the most implausible worlds—in one class, you might experience a sword fight on Mars, a break-up in a college dorm, and an admission that changes an identity forever. In an impos

      7 min read

    • Article

      Bread: Feeding The Workers Of The Industrial Revolution

      Apr 20, 2023

      What was the state of bread-making prior to the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries? For 1,000 years before the Industrial Revolution, making bread was done in the home. You would make your dough and then you’d take it to a communal

      3 min read

    • Article

      'A Bold and Dangerous Family' Ably Chronicles One Italian Family's Battle Against Mussolini

      Oct 5, 2017

      Moorehead, who grew up in Italy and speaks Italian, portrays the trials and intrigues of the Rosselli clan in intimate detail.

      3 min read

    • Article

      David Sedaris

      Sep 15, 2017

      Our house on Emerald Isle, The Sea Section, is divided down the middle, and has an E beside one front door and a W beside the other. The east side is ruled by Hugh, and the bedroom we share is on the top floor. It opens onto a deck that overlooks the

      12 min read

    Reviews for According to Queeney

    3.5/5

    4 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I had heard a lot of praise for this historical novel about the friendship between poet/critic/lexicographer Samuel Johnson and Hester Thrale, so I thought I'd give it a try. Despite thte title, only some chapters are told from the point of view of Mrs. Thrales daughter, affectionately known as "Queeney" (or, to Johnson, "Sweeting"). The book was well written and researched, but, overall, I thought it was just OK. I listened to it in audio format; the reader, Miriam Margolyes, was perfect.
    • 2/5
      Could not see the point of it all. Well written but could hardly be called a novel. Would have preferred an actual biography.
    • 4/5
      According to Queeney is another understated historical novel by Beryl Bainbridge. It is set in 18th Century London, describing the last 20 years of Samuel Johnson's life, particularly focusing on Dr Johnson's relations with Hester Thrale, and her daughter Hester "Queeney" Thrale.Compiling books on family members and friends was the fad of the day during the second half of the 18th Century, when the genre of biography was still taking shape. Parents documented the landmarks in the lives of their children in "Baby Books", "Children's Books" or "Family Books". Friends compiled "Table Talk Books" collecting facts and anecdotes about their friends and acquaintances. Samuel Johnson was the topic of several biographers, even during his lifetime.The most famous of Johnson's biographers is John Boswell. However, it is wrong to believe that Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is a reliable biography. The work is highly biased, in which Boswell is described as correcting Johnson's quotations and many other "facts". In effect, Boswell's Life is only a story or version of Johnson's (real) life. In other words, it is Johnson's life according to Boswell.John Boswell did not like Hester Thrale, who became one of Johnson's best friends during the last 20 years of his life. Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is particularly concerned with the last 20 years of Johnson's life, but the episode with Hester Thrale is largely omitted. Was is jealousy? Certainly, there was an element of envy, and Boswell saw Thrale as a literary competitor, knowing that she was compiling her own scrap book on the life of Johnson.Hester Thrale kept a diary, referred to as the Thraliana, which she initially kept as a diary, but which, came to be her compilation of anecdotes on the life of Johnson. After Johnson's death, she published her correspondence with Johnson, together with this account in 1786 under the title Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. During the Last Twenty Years of His Life. Contemporaries of Samuel Johnson slashed the work as lively, though very inaccurate and artful. It was a disappointing, sensational account of Johnson life according to Hester.Hester Thrale's daughter, also named "Hester Thrale" nicknamed "Queeney" by Johnson, grew up becoming an intellectual diarist and literary correspondent in her own right. Like her mother, she corresponded with Samuel Johnson whom she had known as a friend of the family since her earliest youth, and with whom she was as close as an uncle. Her letters were not published during her lifetime, but were published in 1934 as The Queeney letters. Being letters addressed to Hester Maria Thrale by Doctor Johnson, Fanny Burney and Mrs. Thrale-PiozziIt is likely that Queeney, like her mother, beside her correspondence, kept a diary and compiled anecdotes about Samuel Johnson, but these were never published. Had the been compiled and published, they might have given us another glimpse of Johnson's life according to Queeney.Beryl Bainbridge novel According to Queeney can be read as this fictional version of Johnson's life. The novel reads like a biographical account of Johnson's life, with apparently very unremarkable. The narrative chapters are interspersed with letters by people requesting Queeney for biographical details about Johnson's life, which Queeney seems reluctant to give. In her position as a close friend of Johnson, also particularly spanning the last 20 years of his life, Queeney must have possessed a wealth of information on Samuel Johnson, a treasure, which, unlike her gaudy mother, she seemed very unwilling to share.Thus, Bainbridge's novel is a very understated biography of Johnson. Hardly worth reading.
    • 4/5
      I loved this short, sensitive book. Auntie Beryl wins again.
    • 3/5
      I read this because it was on the Guardian's 1000 books to read list; it was my first on the list. The writing was very formal and well constructed. I am not a history buff and so I felt adrift and ignorant. It was funny but I didn't like the story.
    • 4/5
      Dr. Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer and English man of letters, became friends with the wealthy brewer Henry Thrale and his wife Hester, and lived with them at their country and London homes for seventeen years. What's known is that Johnson and Mrs Thrale had some kind of flirtation; it doesn't seem to be known how far that went. Queeney is the eldest daughter of the Thrales, who observes her mother, Johnson, and other goings on in the strange household. This book describes a various episodes during those years. People are always visiting, or going on journeys, or returning from them. The squalor, filth, and illness of the 18th century are described in detail.There's a lot of tension between Mrs. Thrale and Queeney, for no obvious reason except that Mrs. Thrale is a classic narcissist and Queeney defies her. Mrs. Thrale is constantly pregnant but nearly all her children die and she seems to care only for her son and for a daughter who died before the story begins. At one point a family friend reprimands Mrs. Thrale for giving Queeney so many tin pills for worms and for purging her so vigorously, and I'm all, wow, is this going to be Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy in the 18th century? Wild! but no.I'm not sure what to say about this books. It doesn't have a real story arc; there are various incidents described by an omniscient narrator, interspersed with letters from Queeney written years later that show her to be an unreliable source. If the stories the narrator tells us are true. If it has a them, it's unrequited love: Johnson's for Mrs Thrale, his houskeeper Mrs. Desmoulins for Johnson, Mrs. Thrale for her music teacher. Queeney for her mother.And yet, I liked it, and it stayed with me. That counts for something.
    • 4/5
      'According to Queeney' is a triumph of style, inventiveness, and most importantly, honesty. It follows the life of Samuel Johnson, the writer of the first English dictionary, and his friends in late 18th century England. The story, I am told, is factually very accurate, although I'm sure a lot of the tales must have been at least doctored by Bainbridge. There simply isn't enough about the man and the society around him to cover every assertion made about him and the events in the book.The book is full of very interesting and well-drawn characters, from the irascible genius of Johnson himself, to the childhood prodigy Queeney, and her parents, who seem to love only other people. The dialogue sparkles as much as it honestly should. This is a compelling piece of historical literature, and I would recommend it to anyone with even the slightest interest in Georgian England.
    • 5/5
      This is the second Beryl Bainbridge novel I've read, and I know I'll be reading many more. Because she writes in historical settings and, at least from what I've seen, about very English characters, one has to be willing not to have every detail and reference at hand while reading. One has to be willing to read up at least a little on the central characters (in this case, Samuel Johnson and Hester Thrale) or the central even (in Master Georgie, it was the Crimean War) to best appreciate the nuances of the story, though not to understand the story itself. Other writers might take two or three times as many words to tell the same story, but Bainbridge is careful and spare in her choice of words, making her unusual in the world of historical fiction. To my mind, it also makes her superior.

      While the historical backdrop is important, but it merely provides the framework for what Bainbridge does most brilliantly, and that is to grant the reader multiple viewpoints on the same events through the eyes of several key characters. The result is that one comes away with a fuller understanding of the story than do any of the characters, while at the same time gaining insight into the pervasive effect of subjectivity in interpreting one's life. None of Bainbridge's characters, no matter how brilliant or how practical, escapes influence of their subjective interpretations of events. To some degree, even the reader is implicated, because the revelations of these varying interpretations come about by degrees, so we are spared a tedious omniscient narrator's view of the characters and events. Bainbridge's doubled and sometimes tripled views of events emerge slowly over the course of the novel, and the insights are all the more rewarding for the delay and the reliance on the reader's memory to fill in the gaps.

      The plot of the book is much less important than the manner in which events unfold. In short, the novel covers primarily the twenty-year period in which Samuel Johnson was an intimate friend of Henry and Hester Thrale's. But as Bainbridge is a psychological novelist masquerading as a historical novelist, the real story takes place in the characters' relating to one another and revealing the passions, desires, and fears that drive them.