Record Added: 9/17/2009  A Favorite Book Setting  England Topic Historical Fiction History: Great Britain, I Publisher Faber and Faber Ltd. ISBN 0571061826 Year 1972 Age 13-YA Pages 331 Description Red printed dustjacket
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This is the story of Penelope, who at the age of nine, visits her great-aunt in the British countryside for a summer. While at the centuries-old farm, she discovers that her second-sight enables her to travel back in time to the 16th century, when Mary, Queen of Scots was first in hiding nearby, then imprisoned, by Elizabeth I of England. She interacts with the nobility of the farm, some of whom are in league with the exiled Queen, and are plotting to rescue her.
Although she knows the plot is doomed to failure, and that Queen Mary will be executed, Penelope sympathizes with the "Captive Queen", and tries to aid the rescue attempt. She makes several trips to the past, and grows to love the people she meets there. This novel is full of beautiful language, evocative descriptions, and haunting images. It is an unforgettable story: one so moving and detailed that you can almost taste and smell the past from its pages. |
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A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley is set at Thackers, the fictional name for the Babington manor house actually at Dethick in Derbyshire. Narrator Penelope Taberner witnesses the real young Anthony Babington's growing involvement with Mary I of Scotland as she finds herself passing between her world of the 1940s and the year 1582.
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