Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Persephone Classics)

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Persephone Classics)
by Winifred Watson

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Persephone Classics)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Winifred Watson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 190646202X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Persephone Books
Product features:
  • ISBN13: 9781906462024
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Book Reviews of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Persephone Classics)

Book Review: "Here's mud in your eye"
Summary: 4 Stars


Fans of the Golden Age "grande dames" of detective fiction are oh-so-familiar with the young, fast set in 1930s London. Lord Peter Wimsey could talk "piffle" till the wee hours at clubs and parties, and Roderick Alleyn--until he met the artist Agatha Troy--was known to enjoy the company of actresses. These detectives were the creations of Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh, but their London came to life as a backdrop to the wildly popular books.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is by no means a crime novel, but it was written in 1938 by Winifred Watson, a contemporary of Sayers and Marsh. It was a best-seller in its day but went out of print until resurrected by Persephone Books, a London-based publisher of "neglected classics" from the 20th century. "Miss Pettigrew" was made into a movie, which I have not seen, in 2008.

Miss Pettigrew is a drab middle-aged spinster out of a job and looking for work as a governess (which she hates, being afraid of both the children and their parents). An agency sends her by mistake to the apartment of nightclub singer Delycia LaFosse. Miss LaFosse's personal affairs are in an uproar due to a surfeit of suitors, and Miss Pettigrew discovers in herself a talent for sorting out difficult situations. The day brings one situation after another and there is never a chance to inquire about the position. How does timid Miss Pettigrew find it in herself to send unsuitable young men packing and become the toast of cocktail parties and night clubs? Simple--she takes her inspiration from haughty former employers and of course from the movies she loves so much. It's all so wonderful for her; she's never had a scrap of glamor and excitement in her life until this wonderful day.

After inciting a fight at a late-night club to save Miss LaFosse from herself, with whom will Miss Pettigrew find herself sharing a cab? And what will come of THAT adventure? Predictable but so much fun...the entire book is a piece of delightful "piffle," and of course everyone gets the very thing they want most in the end.

There are a few passages that are culturally inappropriate by today's standards, and of course you wouldn't want your daughters lying about in negligees drinking all day and staying up until 4 a.m. throwing themselves at tantalizing men in night clubs. But the book is a product of its era so if you can cut it some slack on that account, then by all means pick it up and enjoy it.

I listened to the unabridged audio, wonderfully narrated by Frances McDormand who played Miss Pettigrew in the 2008 movie. It was six hours of pure escapist enjoyment, though I'm sorry to have missed the original illustrations in the Persephone edition.

Linda Bulger, 2010

Summary of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Persephone Classics)

Now a major motion picture starring Frances McDormand (Fargo) and Amy Adams (Enchanted)!?

"Why has it taken more than half a century for this wonderful flight of humor to be rediscovered?"-Guardian

"The sweetest grown-up book in the world."-Sunday Times

"Everyone, no matter how poor or prim or neglected, has a second chance to blossom in the world."-Daily Mail, in reference to Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

A major film released in 2008, Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day is a delightful, funny, lighthearted novel. First published in 1938, it was reissued in the United Kingdom in 2000, complete with thirty-five original illustrations, and has sold over 22,000 copies.

Miss Pettigrew, an approaching-middle-age governess, was accustomed to a household of unruly English children. When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. The alluring nightclub singer, Delysia LaFosse, becomes her new employer, and Miss Pettigrew encounters a kind of glamour that she had only met before at the movies. Over the course of a single day, both women are changed forever.

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