Farewell to Fairacre

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001 - Fiction - 224 pages

The last novel in the beloved Fairacre series finds Miss Read with important decisions to make. Gradually worsening health forces her to consider an early retirement. John Jenkins, a handsome newcomer, competes for her affections with the newly widowed Henry Mawne. However, Miss Read has more on her mind than men. Orphans living in her former house have bolstered the village school's roll, but these new students seem to be having problems with their adoptive family. In the midst of all this turmoil, readers can rest assured that FAREWELL TO FAIRACRE boasts all the elements they have come to love: eccentric villagers, gentle humor, and a verdant rural landscape teeming with lambs, larks, and blackthorn bushes.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
6
Section 2
7
Section 3
67
Section 4
76
Section 5
83
Section 6
93
Section 7
121
Section 8
164
Section 9
184
Section 10
192
Section 11
207
Section 12
208
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

Miss Read, 1913 - 2012 Miss Read was born on April 17, 1913 as Dora Jessie Shafe. She worked as a teacher and started writing after World War II for Punch and other journals and as a scriptwriter for the BBC. She wrote her novels under the name Read, which was her mother's maiden name. She is best known for her novels of English rural life and used her own memories of living and teaching in a small English village in her novels. She wrote more than forty novels; many were set in the British countryside -- Fairacre and Thrush Green novels. Read finished her writing career in 1996 with A Peaceful Retirement. In 1998, she was awarded an MBE for her services to literature. She died on April 7, 2012. Miss Read (1913-2012) was the pseudonym of Mrs. Dora Saint, a former schoolteacher beloved for her novels of English rural life, especially those set in the fictional villages of Thrush Green and Fairacre. The first of these, Village School, was published in 1955, and Miss Read continued to write until her retirement in 1996. In the 1998, she was awarded an MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire, for her services to literature.

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