Nina Bawden

tortoise-by-candlelight

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Granny the Pag

Tortoise by Candlelight

Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

It is a small book, acute, discreet and tender; it is also written with warm care and considerable taste – all qualities too easily overlooked

An exceptional picture of disorganised family life

Bawden is noted too for the sharp sense of humour that edges her tales of middle-class manners and mores towards satire, particularly when it all goes wrong

Fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean loves her family. But she worries about them too. Her mother is gone (no one will say where). Her father drinks instead of writing. Her younger brother Oliver has started stealing. And older sister Alice disappears on illicit dates.Then there is their isolated house’s menagerie of birds and animals, including Mo the squirrel and Murgatroyd the tortoise, all of which require Emmie’s love and attention. 
 
When the Sargents, a childless couple, move in next door, Emmie and the Beans find themselves drawn to this welcoming but aimless husband and wife.Emmie fears the darkness and chaos surrounding them all. But perhaps love burns bright . . .

Rediscover the brilliance of Tortoise by Candlelight in the Mermaid Collection - classic books by popular pioneering female authors republished to delight new generations of readers. Pre-order this gorgeous edition now. 
Set just outside London in the early 1960s, this is a charming novel about a family living on the edge of society in their dilapidated Victorian house following the departure of their mother - and the upheaval when a new couple moves in next door . . . 
 
With a foreword by Eve Chase 
 
‘Birds don’t love. They only feed their babies because they gape . . .’ 
 Fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean loves her family. But she worries about them too. Her mother is gone (no one will say where). Her father drinks instead of writing. Her younger brother Oliver has started stealing. And older sister Alice disappears on illicit dates. 
 Then there is their isolated house’s menagerie of birds and animals, including Mo the squirrel and Murgatroyd the tortoise, all of which require Emmie’s love and attention. 
 When the Sargents, a childless couple, move in next door, Emmie and the Beans find themselves drawn to this welcoming but aimless husband and wife. 
 Emmie fears the darkness and chaos surrounding them all. But perhaps love burns bright . . . 
Praise for Nina Bawden:‘An exceptional picture of disorganised family life’ Observer 
‘Bawden is noted too for the sharp sense of humour that edges her tales of middle-class manners and mores towards satire, particularly when it all goes wrong’ Guardian

‘Birds don’t love. They only feed their babies because they gape . . .’ 
 
Fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean loves her family. But she worries about them too. Her mother is gone (no one will say where). Her father drinks instead of writing. Her younger brother Oliver has started stealing. And older sister Alice disappears on illicit dates. 
 
Then there is their isolated house’s menagerie of birds and animals, including Mo the squirrel and Murgatroyd the tortoise, all of which require Emmie’s love and attention. 
 
When the Sargents, a childless couple, move in next door, Emmie and the Beans find themselves drawn to this welcoming but aimless husband and wife. 
 
Emmie fears the darkness and chaos surrounding them all. But perhaps love burns bright . . .

Nina Bawden was born in Ilford in 1925. During World War II she was evacuated to Wales, an experience which informed her 1973 children’s classic Carrie’s War. She studied PPE at Oxford’s Somerville College and began writing during her first marriage, while her babies slept. She wrote freely for both children and adults, publishing nearly fifty books, ‘making use of all my life, all memory, wasting nothing.’ In fact, her life was full of drama and incident: she divorced her first husband after meeting her second on a bus, her son Nikki drowned after years of incarceration due to his struggles with schizophrenia, Nina lost her second husband in the Potters Bar railcrash in 2002. When she died in 2012, most of her books were still in print.

Tortoise by Candlelight

Format:

Pre-order:

It is a small book, acute, discreet and tender; it is also written with warm care and considerable taste – all qualities too easily overlooked

An exceptional picture of disorganised family life

Bawden is noted too for the sharp sense of humour that edges her tales of middle-class manners and mores towards satire, particularly when it all goes wrong

About Nina Bawden

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter