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Book at Bedtime: FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter

Book at Bedtime: FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter: Episode 5

Neglected Classics: The Rector's Daughter

Episode 5

FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime, FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter, Episode 5

The newlywed Herberts return to Dedmayne, but the path of true love does not run smoothly.

The newlywed Herberts return to Dedmayne, but the path of true love does not run smoothly. Read by Juliet Stevenson.

Juliet Stevenson reads F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today the newlyweds return to Dedmayne but the path of true love does not run smooth.

The Reader is Juliet Stevenson 
Abridger Sally Marmion
Producer Di Speirs 

FM Mayor's masterful novel, The Rector's Daughter, is a rare thing - a novel with a deceptively small canvas, set in the backwaters of a dull East Anglia a century ago, but still as fresh as ever. Much loved by those who have discovered it, it now comes to Radio 4 as one of the Open Book listeners' Neglected Classics.

At the heart of the novel lie the fortunes of Mary Jocelyn, a dutiful and devoted daughter content to live out her destiny under the leaden East Anglian skies she loves, to find solace in a robin's song and in the rare moments of warmth from her aged and formidable father. But on losing the one soul who really loved and needed her, Mary finds herself unbearably lonely, and for the first time open to new horizons.

With deft precision, FM Mayor captures the emotions stirring in Mary's heart and the pain of thwarted middle aged desire. With her unerring eye, she reveals both the bitterness and strengths of a happy marriage. The Rector's Daughter is acerbic and poignant and much deserves its loyal fans and its place within Radio 4's Neglected Classics season.

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Juliet Stevenson reads from FM Mayor's novel about a plain, reliable parson's daughter

Juliet Stevenson reads from FM Mayor's 1924 novel about a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair

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