Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is, for me, her masterpiece - Robert McCrum, Guardian, 'The Best 100 Novels'

An author of great subtlety, great compassion and great depth - SARAH WATERS

Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Bowen - soul-sisters all - ANNE TYLER

On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are magnificently eccentric and endlessly curious, living off crumbs of affection and snippets of gossip. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper.

Then one day Mrs Palfrey strikes up an unlikely friendship with an impoverished young writer, Ludo, who sees her as inspiration for his novel.

Elizabeth Taylor's exquisitely drawn character study of eccentricity in old age is a sharp and witty portrait of genteel postwar English life facing the changes taking shape in the 60s. Much of the reader's joy lies in the exquisite subtlety in Taylor's depiction of all the relationships, the sharp brevity of her wit, and the apparently effortless way the plot unfolds - Robert McCrum, the 100 best novels, Guardian