The story of Henrietta Symons from her birth to her death, and the most perfect account in English fiction of those women who, through the ages, have neither married nor loved, the spinster, the maiden aunt, the surplus woman. Henrietta is the third daughter in a large Victorian family, the misfit girl without the beauty or the talent to be loved. Querulous, bad-tempered, her meaningless life passes aimlessly by. But Henrietta has one saving grace. She knows herself for what she is, and self-knowledge, however bitter, turns her life of defeat into a certain kind of victory.
- ISBN10 0140161791
- ISBN13 9780140161793
- Publish Date 5 January 1988 (first published 10 August 1987)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 October 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Group
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 143
- Language English