In Penelope Fitzgerald’s intriguing historical novel, a woman inexplicably disappears as the shadow of impending revolution hangs over imperial Russia
The Gate of Angels
Written by Penelope Fitzgerald
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 1990
- Published by Collins
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In Penelope Fitzgerald’s historical novel, two strangers wake up in the same bed after a bicycle crash. Complications ensue, of both heart and head
In 1912 Fred Fairly is a Junior Fellow at the college of St Angelicus in Cambridge. He lectures in physics and worries about the universal problem known as ‘the absurdity of the Mind-Body relationship’. The young woman beside him when he wakes up one evening in the Wrayburns’ spare bedroom might help to resolve it, but how can he tell if she is quite what she seems? Fred is a scientist. To him the truth should be everything, and indeed he thinks it is. But scientists make mistakes.
Penelope Fitzgerald
The novelist and biographer Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker Prize in 1979 with Offshore before executing a poacher-turned-gamekeeper u-turn and joining the 1991 judging panel
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The shortest novel to win the Booker Prize, Penelope Fitzgerald offers a delightful glimpse into the workings of the eccentric London community living on houseboats on Battersea Reach
Not every town without a bookshop necessarily wants one, as Florence soon discovers in this wise and funny gem from Penelope Fitzgerald