Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter - Available

The World Before Us

A Novel

by Aislinn Hunter
Fiona Hardingham
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
In the tradition of A. S. Byatt's Possession, a hauntingly poignant novel about madness, loss, and the ties that bind our past to our present
 
Deep in the woods of northern England, somewhere between a dilapidated estate and an abandoned Victorian asylum, fifteen-year-old Jane Standen lived through a nightmare.  She was babysitting a sweet young girl named Lily, and in one fleeting moment, lost her. The little girl was never found, leaving her family and Jane devastated.
Twenty years later, Jane is an archivist at a small London museum that is about to close for lack of funding. As a final research project—an endeavor inspired in part by her painful past—Jane surveys the archives for information related to another missing person: a woman who disappeared over one hundred years ago in the same woods where Lily was lost. As Jane pieces moments in history together, a portrait of a fascinating group of people starts to unfurl. Inexplicably tied to the mysterious disappearance of long ago, Jane finds tender details of their lives at the country estate and in the asylum that are linked to her own heartbroken world, and their story from all those years ago may now help Jane find a way to move on.
In riveting, beautiful prose, The World Before Us explores the powerful notion that history is a closely connected part of us—kept alive by the resonance of our daily choices—reminding us of the possibility that we are less alone than we might think.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 31, 2015

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781101913390
      • File size: 363956 KB
      • Duration: 12:38:14

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Although many of the characters in this novel are ghosts, narrator Fiona Hardingham holds the mystical aspects of the tale in check by her gentle, careful performance. Twenty years ago, Jane was babysitting a young girl who disappeared into the woods. Now working at a small museum, Jane researches the disappearance of a woman into those same woods one hundred years earlier. The ghosts of the past are literally around Jane, and listeners hear them bringing a sense of history to the narrative. Hardingham performs them as people who are as real as Jane, since that's how they see themselves. Hunter characterizes Jane as a person of deep introspection, and Hardingham narrates with thoughtful deliberateness. Her sedate pace keeps this magical book sounding true to life. G.D. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 26, 2015
      In Hunter’s (Stay) haunting new novel, Jane Standen was a babysitter in her teens when five-year-old Lily Eliot disappeared on her watch. Now, 20 years later, Jane is an archivist at London’s Chester Museum, which is due to close. While doing research on Victorian-era rural asylums, Jane comes across a reference to the Whitmore Hospital for Convalescent Lunatics and a young woman called N, who, back in 1877, disappeared in the same woods where Lily vanished. After a confrontation at the museum with Lily’s father, William Eliot, a botanist who has written a book on Victorian plant hunters, Jane flees to the north of England to find out what happened to N. Her research shows that N’s fate was inextricably linked to that of George Farrington, a botanist whose estate was located near the asylum. Farrington also had links to the Chesters, who founded the museum where Jane works. Jane goes into the woods, hoping to make sense of things. Narrated by a chorus of ghosts and featuring a romance with a hunky young gardener at the estate, Jane’s story is an emotionally and intellectually satisfying journey in the manner of A.S. Byatt’s Possession and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. And like those two works’ juxtaposition of past and present, this one movingly dramatizes how unknowable the past can be.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading