Poor Cow

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1960s
A01=Nell Dunn
Author_Nell Dunn
award winning author
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Carol White
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city life fiction
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Poor Cow
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Product details

  • ISBN 9780349020853
  • Weight: 134g
  • Dimensions: 126 x 196mm
  • Publication Date: 22 Jan 2026
  • Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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THE BESTSELLLING CLASSIC OF SIXTIES LONDON

'Touching, truthful and fresh - a tour de force' MARGARET DRABBLE
'Hilarious, heartbreaking' PARIS REVIEW
'Her art is ignited by voice' ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN
'Exuberantly alive' SUNDAY TIMES

To think when I was a kid I planned to conquer the world and if anyone saw me now they'd say, 'She's had a rough night, poor cow.'

Joy - twenty-one, bleach-blonde, a head full of dreams - walks down Fulham Broadway in a maternity dress and high suede shoes, carrying her week-old baby. Her husband Tom is a thief and on the proceeds of a job they move to a luxury flat in Ruislip, all new lino and fitted carpets. Then Tom is sent to prison, leaving Joy to move in with Auntie Emm - and to grapple with motherhood, modelling and unreliable men. Exuberant, earthy and tender, Poor Cow was a revelatory portrait of sixties London life.

INTRODUCED BY MARGARET DRABBLE

Nell Dunn (1936) is an English playwright, screenwriter and author. She was educated at a convent which she left at the age of fourteen.

She shot to fame with Poor Cow (1967) and Up the Junction (1963), both of which became successful films. Up the Junction won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize.

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