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A Wife There Was
by Gloria Cigman
291 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-3232; ISBN 1-4251-1473-3; US$22.45, C$25.81, EUR17.50, £11.95
And Chaucer's favourite on that Canterbury pilgrimage she certainly was, but his tantalising recollection of Alison is now revealed to have been no more than the tip of a massive iceberg...
About the Book
'Alison,' says her father, 'will be brought up as a boy.'
But this unwanted daughter is her own person.
A rebellious child, then a feisty woman.
challenging all male authority,
scorning the church's ideals of virginity and chastity,
embracing avidly the forbidden pleasures of sexuality.
Many husbands come her way - some by chance, some by choice.
So too does love - at its best, at its worst.
Born into a turbulent age
of never-ending war, relentless bubonic plague,
political unrest and fierce heresy-hunting,
Alison is very much a 14th century woman.
And yet...
her resilience and survival are timeless
Her life is haunted by conflict
between robust carnality
and a yearning for the serenity of spirituality
that she never finds.
The years bring bleak inner journeys darkened by
sorrow and loss and buried secrets.
And yet, and yet...
come what may, Alison's abounding joy
is a light that never dims for long.
The figures on the cover and inside pages are reproduced from the margins of an illuminated medieval manuscript made in the decade when and the region where Alison was born.
About the Author
Gloria Cigman, born in London. Education halted when evacuated as a child during World War Two. Five years at art schools and a brief career in advertising. Made up for lost time at night school after the age of 30. State Scholarship funded undergraduate study of English Language and Literature as a Mature Student at University College London, then postgraduate Medieval Studies in Oxford. Taught at the University of Warwick 1968-1996, as Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer. Since then, her time has been divided between Paris and Oxford, writing articles, papers for international conferences in Paris, Gottingen, Berlin, Prague, Marrakesh, Budapest, a book on shifting perceptions of evil (Exploring Evil, 2002), and this novel. After engaging for so long with what others have created, A Wife There Was fulfils her ambition to invent something of her own. Two daughters and three grandchildren play an important part in her life.
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