Miss Peabody's Inheritance

Elizabeth Jolley

University of Queensland Press, 2015 - Fiction - 168 pages

In this potent tale of love and loneliness, Elizabeth Jolley has woven two parallel stories into a dazzlingly original novel. Arabella Thorne is a brilliant, witty and accomplished woman. The exotic tale of this flamboyant eccentric and her European travels - with jealous secretary and shy schoolgirl protégée - is the inheritance that transforms the uneventful suburban life of Miss Peabody.

About the author

Elizabeth Jolley was born Monica Elizabeth Knight in Birmingham, England on June 4, 1923. She was educated privately until age 11, when she was sent to Sibford School, a Quaker boarding school. At 17 she began training as nurse in London and was exposed firsthand to the horrors of World War II. She emigrated to Australia in 1959 with her husband and their three children. Before becoming a full-time author, she had numerous jobs including nursing, housecleaning, and farming. She published her first book of short stories, Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories, in 1976, and her first novel, Palomino, in 1980. Her other works included The Newspaper of Claremont Street, Mr. Scobie's Riddle, The Well, My Father's Moon, Miss Peabody's Inheritance, Foxybaby, and The Sugar Mother. She died on February 13, 2007 at the age of 83.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Miss Peabody's Inheritance; UQP Modern Classics Series
• Author: Elizabeth Jolley
• Publisher: University of Queensland Press, 2015
• ISBN: 0702254878, 9780702254871
• Length: 168 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Fiction / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Women