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  • The Lark

  • By: E. Nesbit
  • Narrated by: Anne Hancock
  • Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)

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The Lark

By: E. Nesbit
Narrated by: Anne Hancock
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Summary

E. Nesbit (The Railway Children; Five Children and It) is best known for her children’s classics. In 1922, she published The Lark, a story for adults that writer Penelope Lively calls “[A] charming and brilliantly entertaining novel...shot through with the light-hearted Nesbit touch”.

Orphaned cousins Jane and Lucilla, both 19, receive the exciting news that their guardian is at last allowing them to leave boarding school. But their rosy future is thwarted when they find he has made some bad investments and fled, leaving them with a cottage in the English countryside and a modest bank account.

Finding a way to earn their living is daunting, but Jane insists that instead of worrying, they must regard their new situation as a lark: “When did two girls of our age have such a chance as we’ve got - to have a lark entirely on our own? No chaperone, no rules, no...” “No present income or future prospects,” said Lucilla.

The plucky girls begin by selling flowers, but when they deplete their own garden, they look for more opportunities. Good luck arrives along with a cast of characters who provide help and romantic possibilities, as well as new streams of income. But good fortune can’t last forever, and not all their new friends are as they seem....

Public Domain (P)2018 Anne Hancock
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What listeners say about The Lark

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Hard work

The narrator 's voice was difficult to listen to as it was so high pitched and strained.I only persisted as I had not heard of this book before.

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what a lark

I enjoyed the story and marvelled at the fact that it was written just after the first World War: it must have seemed really forward to express so strongly the independence of two young women. the book is much deeper than it seems. It is also beautifully written!!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Melodic escapism

Loved this book, set in the period after the war. It wonderfully reflected the mores of society at the time, and intrigued and entertained. Beautifully read.

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