The Brontes Went to "Woolworths"

A suffragette at 16, an actress, a dancer and a critic, Rachel Ferguson's novels draw on her extraordinary life This whimsical masterpiece (first published in 1931), a favourite of A. S. Byatt and buzzed about across many literary blogs, is long due a revival Combining the bohemian eccentricity of Nancy Mitford's novels and Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, The Brontes Went To Woolworths is sheer escapist joy

A charming novel from the early 1900s that revels in young innocence prior to the First World War and celebrates the fantasies of childhoodAs growing up in pre-war London looms large in the lives of the Carne sisters, Deirdre, Katrine and young Sheil still share an insatiable appetite for the fantastic. Eldest sister Deirdre is a journalist, Katrine a fledgling actress and young Sheil is still with her governess; together they live a life unchecked by their mother in their bohemian town house. Irrepressibly imaginative, the sisters cannot resist making up stories as they have done since childhood; from their talking nursery toys, Ironface the Doll and Dion Saffyn the pierrot, to their fulsomely-imagined friendship with real high-court Judge Toddington who, since Mrs Carne did jury duty, they affectionately called Toddy. However, when Deirdre meets Toddy's real-life wife at a charity bazaar, the sisters are forced to confront the subject of their imaginings. Will the sisters cast off the fantasies of childhood forever? Will Toddy and his wife, Lady Mildred, accept these charmingly eccentric girls? And when fancy and reality collide, who can tell whether Ironface can really talk, whether Judge Toddington truly wears lavender silk pyjamas or whether the Brontes did indeed go to Woolworths? The Brontes Went to Woolworths is part of The Bloomsbury Group, a new library of books from the early twentieth-century chosen by readers for readers.