Jill Paton Walsh (1937-2020) was an award-winning author of many
books for children, young adults, and adults including The Green
Book, A Parcel of Patterns, the Booker Prize shortlisted Knowledge
of Angels, and the Whitbread Prize winner The Emperor's Winding
Sheet. She completed Dorothy L. Sayers's unfinished Lord Peter
Wimsey and Harriet Vane mystery manuscript, the international
bestseller Thrones, Dominations, and continued Sayers's series with
A Presumption of Death, The Attenbury Emeralds, and The Late
Scholar.
She held numerous posts connected to literature, including an Arts
Council Creative Writing Fellowship, acting as a Whitbread Prize
judge, and serving on the committee of the Society of Authors. She
contributed articles and reviews to many journals. In 1996 Walsh
was awarded a CBE for services to literature and was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
A pocket masterpiece
*Guardian*
A masterly tale
*Lucy Mangan*
If ever there was a book to make us thankful to live in modern
times, have scientific cures and the NHS, this is it. Jill Paton
Walsh catches the voices of long ago, in the unbroken narrative of
one likeable girl: 'author' of the story. Punctuated by exquisite
glimpses of Nature, beautiful and raw, and of joyous first love,
the account lays bare the horror of a remorseless epidemic. Even
knowing the historical facts, we go on hoping, crossing our
fingers, holding our breath. The archaic language, jolting at
first, feels familiar by the end and adds to the authenticity of
the heroine's account. The message to the reader - if indeed there
is one - feels important: be grateful for small mercies...and glad
to be alive
*Geraldine McCaughrean*
A beautifully written, meaningful story
*Publishers Weekly*
[Jill Paton Walsh] had an unpatronising literary style and was
ambitious about what children would enjoy
*Guardian*
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