Purposes of Love

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A01=Mary Renault
A24=Sarah Dunant
Author_Mary Renault
Brown Book Group
Category1=Fiction
Category=FBC
Category=NL-FC
classic romance books
classic romance fiction
COP=United Kingdom
Discount=15
eq_bestseller
eq_classics
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
fire from heaven
Format=BC
Format_Paperback
funeral games
HMM=126
IMPN=Virago Press Ltd
ISBN13=9781844089512
kind are her answers
Language_English
literary classics
literary fiction
literary novels
literary romance
literary writers
mary renault
north face
PA=Available
PD=20140605
POP=London
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
PUB=Little
purposes of love
return to night
romance fiction
SMM=25
SN=Virago Modern Classics
Subject=Classic Fiction
the bull from the sea
the charioteer
the friendly young ladies
the king must die
the last of the wine
the mask of apollo
the persian boy
the praise singer
virago modern classics
vmc
WG=308
WMM=196

Product details

  • ISBN 9781844089512
  • Format: Paperback
  • Weight: 308g
  • Dimensions: 196 x 126 x 25mm
  • Publication Date: 05 Jun 2014
  • Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
  • Publication City/Country: London, GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
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Vivian, a student nurse, chose her profession as a challenge, both to her spirit and to her permanently exhausted body; Mic immerses himself in his work at the hospital to ward off the emotional wounds of an unhappy childhood. Through Jan, Viv's beloved older brother, they meet, and their friendship turns into a secret romance. Secret because, if discovered, it would cost them their jobs.

Despite the discipline and rigid hierarchy imposed by the hospital, their passion takes root, but between them hangs the tantalising and enigmatic shadow of Jan.

Mary Renault (1905-1983) was born in London and educated at St Hughs, Oxford. She trained as a nurse at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary, where she met her lifelong partner, Julie Mullard. Her first novel, Purposes of Love, was published in 1937. In 1948, after North Face won a MGM prize worth $150,000, she and Mullard emigrated to South Africa. There, Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time - in her masterpiece, The Charioteer (1953), and then in her first historical novel, The Last of the Wine (1956). Renault's vivid novels set in the ancient world brought her worldwide fame. In 2010 Fire From Heaven was shortlisted for the Lost Booker of 1970.

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