Publisher Description

Jane Gardam's funny and wise masterpiece, reissued with a new introduction by Nina Stibbe'Old Filth has stayed with me for years' SATHNAM SANGHERA'Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny' HILARY MANTEL'The last great book I read' RACHEL WEISZ 'Gardam's masterpiece'GUARDIANFilth, in his heydey, was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East. Now, only the oldest QCs can remember that his nickname stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan - one of the many young children sent 'Home' from the East to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardam's novel tells his story, from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age. In doing so, she not only encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of the British Empire, through the Second World War, to the present and beyond, but also illuminates the complexities of the character known variously as Eddie, the Judge, Fevvers, Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, Teddy and Sir Edward Feathers.

Flap

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction FILTH, in his heyday, was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East. Now, only the oldest QCs can remember that his nickname stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan - one of the many young children sent 'Home' from the East to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardam's novel tells his story, from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age. In doing so, she not only encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of the British Empire, through the Second World War, to the present and beyond, but also illuminates the complexities of the character known variously as Eddie, the Judge, Fevvers, Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, Teddy and Sir Edward Feathers. 'Beautiful, vivid, defiantly funny' The Times 'This novel is surely Gardam's masterpiece... On the human level, it is one of the most moving fictions I have read in years' Guardian 'Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers' Hilary Mantel ' Old Filth has stayed with me for years... I can't think of anyone who achieves so much with so few words' Sathnam Sanghera

Author Biography

Jane Gardam is the only writer to have been twice awarded the Whitbread/Costa Prize for Best Novel of the Year, for The Queen of the Tambourine and The Hollow Land. She also holds a Heywood Hill Literary Prize for a lifetime's contribution to the enjoyment of literature. She is the author of five volumes of acclaimed stories: Black Faces, White Faces (David Higham Prize and the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize); The Pangs of Love (Katherine Mansfield Prize); Going into a Dark House (Silver Pen Award from PEN); Missing the Midnight; and The People on Privilege Hill. Her novels include God on the Rocks, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Faith Fox; The Flight of the Maidens; the bestselling Old Filth, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2005; The Man in the Wooden Hat; and Last Friends. Jane Gardam was born in Yorkshire. She now lives in east Kent.

Review

A magnificent, deeply moving and compassionate portrait of an era and a sentimental education * Daily Mail *
Beautiful, vivid and defiantly funny * The Times *
I recommend it wholeheartedly for its economy, breadth of narrative, and its insight, humour and pathos * Mail on Sunday *
What a spiky brilliant sledgehammer of a novel is Jane Gardam's Old Filth * Patrick Ness *
This novel is surely Gardam's masterpiece... On the human level, it is one of the most moving fictions I have read for years... This is the rare novel that drives its reader forward while persistently waylaying and detaining by the sheer beauty and inventiveness of its style... her cunning wit, moving deftly between scenes and eras, displays the tragedy of a vintage world forever passing away * Guardian *
It's a cliché to compare novelists to Jane Austen, but in the case of Jane Gardam it happens to be true. Her diamond-like prose, her understanding of the human heart, her formal inventiveness and her sense of what it is to be alive - young, old, lonely, in love - never fades * Amanda Craig *
Excellent and compulsively readable... Old Filth belongs in the Dickensian pantheon of memorable characters * New York Times *
Jane Gardam's work is rich and diverse and she writes beautifully... She's a treasure of contemporary English writing * Ian McEwan *
Like Samuel Beckett, Gardam continually explores the corrosive loneliness of being alive and the courage it takes to continue... Readers will relish Old Filth for its compassionate wisdom, its comprehension of the way we lived then and live now, and for its absolute mastery of authorial tone - the product of a lifetime of experience and craft... It is a Rembrandt portrait of a novel... Don't miss it * New Statesman *
One of the finest writers around... Old Filth has stayed with me for years... Can't think of anyone who achieves so much with so few words * Sathnam Sanghera *
Her work, like Sylvia Townsend Warner's, has that appealing combination of elegance, erudition and flinty wit * Patrick Gale *
Excellently observed and quietly moving... Gardam invents an apparently composed character, and then disassembles him into pieces which - on closer inspection - look jagged and in poor repair * Independent on Sunday *
Gardam pulls off the near-impossible trick of great emotional depth delivered with wingtip lightness... Her characters are drawn with rich humour, and Old Filth himself is a marvellous, moving creation whose company you find yourself sad to leave * Telegraph *
Told with compassion and great style, Gardam seems to get better as she gets older -- John Humphrys * New Statesman *
Superb... quiet beauty, sly wit and heartbreaking humanity... the author has poignantly distilled a life less ordinary into 259 unforgettable pages * Sunday Times *
Sparkles with Gardam's wit, sensibility and poignancy and it deservedly earned an Orange Prize nomination... a fictional life of absorbing, emotional sophistication about memory, loss and the vestiges of empire... a beautiful, melancholy novel which captivates, saddens and delights * Observer *
Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers * Hilary Mantel *
Will bring immense pleasure to readers who treasure fiction that is intelligent, witty, sophisticated and - a quality encountered all too rarely in contemporary culture - adult * Washington Post *
I can't say I've read anything else like Old Filth, which stands out for me as a singular, opalescent novel, a thing of beauty that gives immense gratification to its lucky readers * Meg Wolitzer *
Beautifully written and strangely moving * Spectator *
A novel of great perception and quietly killing prose * Independent *
With superb skill and economy, Jane Gardam encapsulates the long lifetime of Sir Edward Feathers... Witty, humane, wise - this end-of-Empire tragicomedy is a masterclass in conducting shifting empathies * Daily Mail *
The last great book I read * Rachel Weisz, Grazia *

Long Description

Jane Gardam's funny and wise masterpiece, reissued with a new introduction by Nina Stibbe Filth, in his heydey, was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East. Now, only the oldest QCs can remember that his nickname stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan - one of the many young children sent 'Home' from the East to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardam's novel tells his story, from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age. In doing so, she not only encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of the British Empire, through the Second World War, to the present and beyond, but also illuminates the complexities of the character known variously as Eddie, the Judge, Fevvers, Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, Teddy and Sir Edward Feathers. 'Beautiful, vivid, defiantly funny' The Times 'This novel is surely Gardam's masterpiece... On the human level, it is one of the most moving fictions I have read in years' Guardian 'Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers' Hilary Mantel 'Old Filth has stayed with me for years... I can't think of anyone who achieves so much with so few words' Sathnam Sanghera

Review Quote

Beautiful, vivid and defiantly funny - The TimesI recommend it wholeheartedly for its economy, breadth of narrative, and its insight, humour and pathos - Mail on Sunday What a spiky brilliant sledgehammer of a novel is Jane Gardam's Old Filth - Patrick Ness This novel is surely Gardam's masterpiece. On the human level, it is one of the most moving fictions I have read for years . . . This is the rare novel that drives its reader forward while persistently waylaying and detaining by the sheer beauty and inventiveness of its style. One must savour every phrase. The marriage of quirky eccentricity and psychological authenticity is a Gardam technique, but here her cunning wit, moving deftly between scenes and eras, displays the tragedy of a vintage world forever passing away - Guardian She does fiction as it should be done , with confidence and insight - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, praise for The Stories Typical excellence and compulsive readability . . . the miracle of "Old Filth" is that its hero eludes sociological or psychological pigeonholing. If he is a characteristic Raj orphan, he is also triumphantly his own man - New York Times

Promotional "Headline"

This funny and wise masterpiece is being reissued as one of five titles celebrating Abacus's 50th anniversary, with a new introduction from Nina Stibbe

Details