The Rector's Daughter by F.M. Mayor

It is elegant and flexible, most fluently expressing every shade of human emotion' SUSAN HILL 'A novel to rival George Eliot or Jane Austen' THE TIMES 'The most exquisitely written, delicate, passionately felt and haunting book' ELIZABETH BUCHAN Dedmayne Rectory is quietly decaying, its striped chintz and darkened rooms are a bastion of outmoded Victorian values. Here Mary has spent thirty-five years, devoting herself to her sister, now dead, and to her father, Canon Jocelyn. Although she is pitied by her neighbours for this muted existence, Mary is content.

But when she meets Robert Herbert, Mary's ease is destroyed and years of suppressed emotion surface through her desire for him. First published in 1924, this novel is an impressive exploration of Mary's relationship with her father, of her need for Robert and the way in which, through each, she comes to a clearer understanding of love.