Talland House

A Novel

by Maggie Humm

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Pub Date Aug 18 2020 | Archive Date Sep 12 2020

She Writes Press

Historical Fiction | Women's Fiction

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Description

Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind her—a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lily’s portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, she’s been a suffragette and a nurse in WWI, and now she’s a successful artist with a painting displayed at the Royal Academy. Then Louis appears at the exhibition with the news that Mrs. Ramsay has died under suspicious circumstances. Talking to Louis, Lily realizes two things: 1) she must find out more about her beloved Mrs. Ramsay’s death (and her sometimes-violent husband, Mr. Ramsay), and 2) She still loves Louis.

Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf’s novel—as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of her friend Mrs. Ramsay’s sudden death. Talland House is both a story for our present time, exploring the tensions women experience between their public careers and private loves, and a story of a specific moment in our past—a time when women first began to be truly independent.

A Note From the Publisher

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Maggie Humm is an Emeritus Professor, University of East London, UK. An international Virginia Woolf scholar and the author/editor of fourteen books (the last three focused on Woolf and the arts), Humm is former Co-Chair of the British Women's Studies Association, founded the first full-time undergraduate UK Women's Studies degree, and was a judge of the Fawcett Society book prize. To transition to creative writing, she earned a diploma in Creative Writing from the prestigious programme launched by the University of East Anglia in partnership with the Guardian, followed by mentorship with The Literary Consultancy. She contributed a programme note for the 'Woolf Works' ballet at the Royal Opera House and a catalogue essay for the major Woolf exhibition at Tate St Ives in Spring 2018, speaking there at an April conference 2018. Talland House is Humm's debut novel. Shortlisted for the Impress, Fresher Fiction prizes (as Who Killed Mrs. Ramsay?) and Retreat West and Eyelands prizes and longlisted for the Lucy Cavendish and Historical Writers' Association / Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Awards and set for official release in August 2020 with She Writes Press. She lives in London and is currently writing Rodin's Mistress about the tumultuous love affair of the artists Gwen John and Rodin.

Advance Praise

*** Shortlisted for the Impress Prize, Fresher Fiction Prize, Retreat West Prize and Eyelands Prize ***

*** Longlisted for the Lucy Cavendish and Historical Writers' Association, Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Awards ***

“Maggie Humm has brilliantly filled in the edges beyond Woolf’s canvas; she has a deep, awe-inspiring understanding of the role of the visual in Woolf’s work, and here she reveals that she also has a novelist’s gift to create something new, that has its own imaginative life, from that understanding.” ―Lauren Elkin, award-winning author of Flaneuse

“I’ve really enjoyed Talland House . . . the novel is written with such a painterly eye I felt as if I too was seeing the world through Lily Briscoe’s eyes. It is a wonderfully visual novel and the Cornish scenes are gorgeously evoked.” ―Annabel Abbs, author of the award-winning The Joyce Girl and Frieda

“Evocative of Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in the way [Humm] represents the tensions between nostalgia and the passing of time. The primary setting of St Ives in Cornwall is beautifully depicted and subtly realised, without resorting to cliché or relying on Woolf’s vivid descriptions, creating a language of the writer’s own. . . . The atmosphere of the novel is dreamy. . . .” ―Historical Writers Association

“It’s evocative and engaging, sweeping landscapes simmering next to psychological interior exploration. Picturesque Cornwall and busy London are the backdrop for a young woman growing up, and an older woman reflecting back. We’re treated to details about the captivating Lily Briscoe and her relationship with herself, her art, and the women and men in her life. It’s a great read, from a clearly very knowledgeable writer.” ―Francesca Baker, book reviewer at AndSoSheThinks.co.uk

“I hope that Maggie Humm knows that every time I read her work, I’m so startled by its brilliance all over again.” ― Amy E. Elkins, writer for PMLA, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Journal of Modern Literature, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, South Atlantic Review, and The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945

*** Shortlisted for the Impress Prize, Fresher Fiction Prize, Retreat West Prize and Eyelands Prize ***

*** Longlisted for the Lucy Cavendish and Historical Writers' Association, Sharpe Books...