{"product_id":"a-game-of-hide-and-seek-9781590174968","title":"A Game of Hide and Seek","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA decade-spanning love story from an author who is \"the missing link between Jane Austen and John Updike\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHaunted by unspoken tensions and stifled ardor, two lovers navigate shifting expectations and societal changes in inter-war England. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The mid-twentieth century British novelist Elizabeth Taylor numbered among her admirers Elizabeth Bowen, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Kingsley Amis. She also regularly published stories in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e for close to two decades. For all that, her work, as steely as it is delicate, remains the secret of a small number of intensely devoted readers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The publication of her finest novel, \u003ci\u003eA Game of Hide and Seek, \u003c\/i\u003e long unavailable in the United States, should help to change that. This is an unabashed love story, capturing all the uncertainty and inevitability and deceptiveness of true love, tracking the shifting currents of emotional life, and never yielding to melodrama. Set in Britain between the wars--a time of transition between old convention and new ways--the book's heroine is Harriet, the only child of a suffragette, whom we meet as a shy and domestic and not especially smart or pretty girl. At eighteen she falls in love with Vesey, but after Vesey must go away, she marries another man, Charles, and bears a child. Then Vesey returns. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Love is at the center of the book, but so too is Taylor's extraordinary knack for depicting characters. The minor figures in the book--from Harriet's mother's friend Caroline, with her progressive politics, to Charles, his coworkers, and his mother, to Betsy with her schoolgirl crush on her Greek teacher--are as memorable as the passion and heartache of Harriet and Vesey.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eELIZABETH TAYLOR (1912-1975)\u003c\/b\u003e was born into a middle-class family in Berkshire, England. She held a variety of positions, including librarian and governess, before marrying a businessman in 1936. Nine years later, her first novel, \u003ci\u003eAt Mrs. Lippincote's\u003c\/i\u003e, appeared. She would go on to publish\u003cbr\u003eeleven more novels, including \u003ci\u003eAngel\u003c\/i\u003e (available as an NYRB Classic), four collections of short stories (many of which originally appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, Harper's\u003c\/i\u003e, and other magazines), and a children's book, \u003ci\u003eMossy Trotter\u003c\/i\u003e, while living with her husband and two children in Buckinghamshire. Long championed by Ivy Compton-Burnett, Barbara Pym, Robert Liddell, Kingsley Amis, and Elizabeth Jane Howard, Taylor's novels and stories have been the basis for a number of films, including \u003ci\u003eMrs. Palfrey at the Claremont\u003c\/i\u003e (2005), starring Joan Plowright, and François Ozon's \u003ci\u003eAngel \u003c\/i\u003e(2007). In 2013 NYRB Classics will publish a new selection of Taylor's short stories. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eCALEB CRAIN\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eAmerican Sympathy\u003c\/i\u003e, a study of friendship between men in early American literature. He has written for\u003ci\u003e The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003en+1\u003c\/i\u003e. His novel \u003ci\u003eNecessary Errors\u003c\/i\u003e will be published in 2013.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50515866910994,"sku":"9781590174968","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f93e434a-c799-46b1-9acd-57f242fb58c9.jpg?v=1731014092","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-game-of-hide-and-seek-9781590174968","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}