The beginning of spring - Penelope Fitzgerald

Short-listed for the Booker Prize Fitzgerald was the author of several slim, perfect novels.

The Blue Flower and The Beginning of Spring both had me abuzz for days the first time I read them.

She was curiously perfect.

-- Teju Cole, author of Open City Writing so precise and lilting it can make you shiver.

-- Los Angeles Times March 1913.

Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring.

English painter Frank Reid returns from work one night to find that his wife has gone away; no one knows where or why, or whether she'll ever come back.

All Frank knows for sure is that he is now alone and must find someone to care for his three young children.

Into Frank's life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a quiet, calming beauty from the country, untroubled to the point of seeming simple.

But is she? And why has Frank's bookkeeper, Selwyn Crane, gone to such lengths to bring these two together? This new edition features an introduction by Andrew Miller, author of Pure , along with new cover art.