A Harp in Lowndes Square

In the schoolroom in Lowndes Square a child in her ugly unsuitable frock of plum-coloured satin cut down when discarded from one of her mothers bent over the cutting out of a doll and its cardboard wardrobe and shivered as she worked.Hilarious shocking and heartbreaking in turn A Harp in Lowndes Square is like no other Rachel Ferguson novel. Perhaps her most personal work - and the closest she ever came to a ghost story - it tells of Vere and James twins gifted with the sight which allows them to see and even experience scenes from the past (including one at Hampton Court involving royalty).The twins are already aware of their mothers troubled relationship with her own mother the formidable Lady Vallant but the discovery of an Aunt Myra who died young and of whom their mother has never spoken leads them to uncover the familys tragic past. Against the backdrop of World War I and Veres unexpected relationship with an aging actor (and his wife) and rife with Fergusons inimitable wit the novel reaches a powerful and touching denouement when the twins relive the horrifying events of many years before ...A Harp in Lowndes Square was originally published in 1936. This new edition features an introduction by social historian Elizabeth Crawford.It is only (now) that I realise how much ... my work owes to the delicacy and variety of Rachel Fergusons exploration of the real and the dreamed of or the made up or desired. A.S. Byatt