The Fifth Child (New Longman Literature) - Softcover

Lessing, Doris

3.62

21,018 ratings by Goodreads

9780582060210: The Fifth Child (New Longman Literature)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0582060214 ISBN 13: 9780582060210

Publisher: Pearson Education Limited, 1991

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This volume is part of a new series of novels, plays and stories at GCSE/Key Stage 4 level, designed to meet the needs of the National Curriculum syllabus. Each text includes an introduction, pre-reading activities, notes and coursework activities. Also provided is a section on the process of writing, often compiled by the author. This novel tells the story of Harriet. Pregnant for the fifth time, she congratulates herself and David on ensuring that everything should be just as they have always wanted it. but this is no ordinary pregnancy, and the arrival of Ben - the sinister "fifth child" - is to threaten all that she has ever held onto.

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Review:

A hair-raising tale as full of twists and shocks as any page turner could desire. Time Terse and chilling . A witch s brew of conflicting fears. The New York Review of Books A horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse . A moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley s Frankenstein and George Orwell s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The New York Times Book Review"

"A hair-raising tale...as full of twists and shocks as any page turner could desire." --Time"Terse and chilling.... A witch's brew of conflicting fears." --The New York Review of Books"A horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse.... A moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four." --The New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover:

’Listening to the laughter, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David would reach for each other’s hand, and smile, and breathe happiness.’

Four children, a beautiful old house, the love of relatives and friends, Harriet and David Lovatt’s life is a glorious hymn to domestic bliss and old-fashioned family values. But when their fifth child is born, a sickly and implacable shadow is cast over this tender idyll. Large and ugly, violent and uncontrollable, the infant Ben, ‘full of cold dislike,’ tears at Harriet’s breast. Struggling to care for her new-born child, faced with a darkness and a strange defiance she has never known before, Harriet is deeply afraid of what, exactly, she has brought into the world...

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