The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws: MINT SIGNED & PUBLICATION DAY DATED FIRST EDITION

Drabble, Margaret

ISBN 10: 1843546191 / ISBN 13: 9781843546191

Published by Atlantic Books, 2009

About this Item

A mint first printing in a likewise unclipped dust wrapper. Unread gift condition copy SIGNED and Publication Day DATED October 15 2009. Outstanding. BOXED DESPATCH: OVERSEAS AIR ONLY: PLEASE DO NOT SELECT SURFACE!

Seller Inventory # ABE-17506339888

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws: MINT SIGNED & PUBLICATION DAY DATED FIRST EDITION
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1843546191
• ISBN 13: 9781843546191
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

James Boswell described the 'innocent soothing relief from melancholy' of playing draughts, and Margaret Drabble - among countless others - has found a similar solace from assembling jigsaws. In The Pattern in the Carpet she describes the history of this uniquely British form of meditation, from its earliest incarnation in dissected maps (which were used as teaching tools in the eighteenth century), to the amazing variety of cut-outs that have continued to amuse children and adults until the present. Along the way we encounter Roman mosaics; the geographical playing cards that Cardinal Mazarin commissioned for the child Louis XIV; and the game named after the transport minister Belisha Beacon. Woven through her account are intimate memories of her aunt Phyllis - her childhood visits to the house in Long Bennington on the Great North Road, their first visit to London together, the books they read and, above all, the jigsaws that they completed.

The Pattern in the Carpet is an original and often very moving personal history about remembrance and growing older; about the importance of childhood play; and how we rearrange objects into new patterns to make sense of our past and ornament our present.

About the Author

MARGARET DRABBLE was born in Sheffield in 1939 and went to a Quaker boarding school in York, and then Newnham College, Cambridge. In 2008 she was created DBE. She has written several highly acclaimed novels, most recently The Sea Lady (published by Fig Tree, 2006). She has also written biographies, screenplays and is the editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London.