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The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale
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The Thirteenth Tale Hardback - 2006

by Setterfield, Diane

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This seller has earned a 5.00 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.
5.00 / 5 (2 total reviews)
  • Used
  • Fine
  • Hardback
  • first
Used - Fine

Description

New York: Atria Books, 2006. First Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾"- 9¾" tall. Wonderfully inventive novel centered on a woman reveailing long hidden secrets to her biographer. Fine in a fine jacket, 4th printing.

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Ships from Books, Interesting and Odd & Sleepyside Books (Illinois, United States)
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Details

  • Title The Thirteenth Tale
  • Author Setterfield, Diane
  • Binding Hardback
  • Edition First Edition
  • Condition Used - Fine
  • Pages 406
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Atria Books, New York
  • Publication date 2006
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 002811
  • ISBN 9780743298025 / 0743298020
  • Weight 1.31 lbs (0.59 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.4 x 6.48 x 1.3 in (23.88 x 16.46 x 3.30 cm)
  • Size 8vo - over 7¾"- 9¾" tall
  • Reading level 840
  • Category Fiction - General
  • Library of Congress subjects Female friendship, Women authors
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2006042906
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC
  • Quantity available 1

About Books, Interesting and Odd & Sleepyside Books Illinois, United States

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Reader reviews for The Thirteenth Tale

Review summary

This seller has earned a 5.00 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.
5.00 / 5 (2 total reviews)
This seller has earned a 5.00 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

Suspenseful and beautifully written, this is a tale that will hold your attention. Just when you think you know where the story is heading, a twist occurs that throws you off course. One of the most mesmerizing books I have read this summer!

a reader

This seller has earned a 5.00 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.

This novel is a literary tribute by the author to gothic and romantic novels enjoyed in her own English girlhood -- especially JAYNE EYRE. Pick any five consecutive sentences of THE THIRTEENTH TALE and you may find at most one flat, ordinary formulation. This is "poetry" or poetic prose as Heidegger saw it: "thickening" (German Dichtung). That is, ordinary words and experiences carry weight beyond what most writers make language bear. No glossary needed for this tale of Yorkshire. Just bring your heart. *** Can two depressingly dysfunctional generations of the Angelfield family finally spawn normal offspring? Must twin girls neglected by their parents remain weird for life? The novel asks why does it take Margaret Lea, an outsider biographer, whose twin had died at birth, to tell when Britain's greatest novelist, Vida Winter, is lying about her family. "Trust but verify" is Margaret's model and it helps her both unravel the Angelfields and their tragedy and come to terms with herself and her parents. *** THE THIRTEENTH TALE makes a case that the classic way to tell a tale (especially when the yarn is deliberately gothic and romantic) is always the best way: with a beginning which assumes nothing, a middle which blends the elements into fiendishly complex puzzles, enigmas and terrors, and a brief end and coda in which all is explained. Does that also sound like the best kind of detective story? *** -OOO-

killswan

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From the publisher

When Margaret Lea opened the door to the past, what she confronted was her destiny.

"All children mythologize their birth."..So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.

The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

"The Thirteenth Tale" is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.

First line

It was November.

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