Prospero's Daughter

by Constance Beresford-Howe

Pauline agrees to return to England to live with her father and half-sister. Once there, she is constantly manipulated by her father as he attempts to arrange the life of his simple-minded, eldest daughter, Nan, before his death.

Genres: Novels

256 pages

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Constance Beresford-Howe was born in Montreal. She received her M.A. from McGill University in 1946 and her Ph.D. from Brown University in 1950. She taught English literature and creative writing at McGill until 1969, then moved to Toronto, Ontario where she taught at Ryerson until her retirement in 1988. Her first novel, The Unreasoning Heart, was published while she was still a student.

Ms Beresford-Howe died in a hospice in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk England, on Jan. 20, 2016 at the age of 93.

Reviews

[Mrsgaskell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable read but perhaps not quite as good as the other titles I’ve read by this author. After a serious accident, Polly Weston ends her estrangement from her father, the famous author Montague Weston. She returns to his home near Canterbury where he lives with her half-sister, simple-minded Nan, his secretary Hamish Grant and an assortment of servants and house guests. An expatriate Canadian, Montague Weston has created an image for himself and tries to arrange the lives of those around him just as he does those of the characters in his fiction. This has disastrous consequences. I was appalled by the way Nan was treated as an unpaid servant in the household; and I was infuriated by the plan to marry off this woman who in many ways seemed no more than a child in spite of her 37 years. I didn’t find the family very believable as transplanted Canadians – all their deeply-engrained traditions seemed ones of the British upper middle class.

[Jo-Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book impenetrable. I was a big fan of this ladies writing and have read and re-read all her books. This one I struggled through one and may need to revisit sometime, but yrs low on my reading list.

[Joan Barton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was good, however, the story was not for me. Can not recommend .