{"product_id":"private-enterprise-volume-16-9781504092869","title":"Private Enterprise: Volume 16","description":"\u003cb\u003eAmid food shortages and grumbling, Barsetshire is unsettled by the arrival of a pretty war widow in this \"delicately humorous [and] entertaining\" novel (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWorld War II may be over, but its effects linger in the English countryside as the local ladies trade ration coupons for a paltry selection of provisions. It's feeling like a bleak summer--but it won't be a boring one, now that flirtatious young widow Peggy Arbuthnot and her sister-in-law, Effie, are on the scene. Peggy has quite a few admirers--including Noel Merton, which is rather unfortunate for his wife. Suspense reigns over who might win Peggy's hand--and whether the Merton marriage will survive . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Where Trollope would have been content to arouse a chuckle, [Thirkell] is constantly provoking us to hilarious laughter. . . . To read her is to get the feeling of knowing Barsetshire folk as well as if one had been born and bred in the county.\" --\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAngela Thirkell (1890-1961) was a British author whose ability to produce one book a year, every year, and \u003ci\u003eset \u003c\/i\u003ein that year blurred the lines between novelist and social historian. Like so many of the writers that she admired--Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot--Thirkell shared their X-ray vision: an unmatched ability to assess the hypocrisies, desires, and prejudices of her characters and, better still, play them for laughs. Her biggest literary project, the Barsetshire Chronicles, consists of twenty-nine novels, each acting as another slice of English country life; a utopian vision of bucolic countryside, grand manors, and village f?tes.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Open Road Media","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51181235372306,"sku":"9781504092869","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ea4792b5-b80c-468b-8c3d-4e52e383f9f0.jpg?v=1744393082","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/private-enterprise-volume-16-9781504092869","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}