O Caledonia

With an introduction by Maggie O’Farrell

By: Elspeth Barker, Maggie O'Farrell - introduction

Narrated by: Eilidh Beaton

'I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book'
Maggie O'Farrell

'A sparky, funny work of genius and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th Century'
Ali Smith

'Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up'
David Nicholls

'A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour'
Penelope Lively

At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother's black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the sixteen years of Janet's short life.

A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll's house.

A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin Lila.

A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination.

A W&N Essential with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell©2010 Elspeth Barker and Maggie O'Farrell (P)2021 Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Critic reviews

"I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book." (Maggie O'Farrell)

"A sparky, funny work of genius and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th Century." (Ali Smith)

"Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up. The Brontë sisters and Poe via Dodie Smith and Edward Gorey." (David Nicholls)

"An absolute sumptuous treat of a book." (Elizabeth Macneal)

"A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour." (Penelope Lively)