One of Elizabeth Bowen s most artful and psychologically acute novels, The House in Paris is a timeless masterpiece of nuance and atmosphere, and represents the very best of Bowen s celebrated oeuvre. When eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers well-appointed house in Paris, she is prepared to spend her day between trains looked after by an old friend of her grandmother s. Henrietta longs to see a few sights in the foreign city; little does she know what fascinating secrets the Fisher house itself contains.
For Henrietta finds that her visit coincides with that of Leopold, an intense child who has come to Paris to be introduced to the mother he has never known. In the course of a single day, the relations between Leopold, Henrietta s agitated hostess Naomi Fisher, Leopold s mysterious mother, his dead father, and the dying matriarch in bed upstairs, come to light slowly and tantalizingly. And when Henrietta leaves the house that evening, it is in possession of the kind of grave knowledge usually reserved only for adults."
- ISBN10 0224600567
- ISBN13 9780224600569
- Publish Date 27 May 1982 (first published 29 April 1976)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 11 May 1995
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 212
- Language English