In memory of the wife who had once dishonoured and always despised him, Brian de Retteville founded Oby - a twelfth-century convent in a hidden corner of Norfolk. Two centuries later the Benedictine community is well established there and, as befits a convent whose origin had such chequered motives, the inhabitants are prey to the ambitions, squabbles, jealousies and pleasures of less spiritual environments. An outbreak of the Black Death, the collapse of the convent spire, the Bishop's visitation and a nun's disappearance are interwoven with the everyday life of the nuns, novices, successive Prioresses and the nun's priest, in this affectionate and ironic observation of the more wordly history of a religious order.
- ISBN10 086068878X
- ISBN13 9780860688785
- Publish Date 7 October 1993 (first published August 1968)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 23 January 2013
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Virago Press Ltd
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 320
- Language English