Harriet Said...

Harriet Said... was the first novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. Although completed in 1958^[1] it was rejected by several publishers in the late fifties, one of whom wrote:

what repulsive little creatures you have made the two central characters, repulsive almost beyond belief! And I think the scene in which the two men and the two girls meet in the Tsar's house is too indecent and unpleasant even for these lax days. What is more, I fear that even now a respectable printer would not print it!.^[2]

The manuscript was thought lost but was found by one publisher, returned to the author and finally published by Duckworth in 1972, and by George Braziller in the US the following year.^[3] It was inspired by newspaper reports of a murder case involving two young girls in New Zealand.^[4]

Plot introduction

It concerns two schoolgirls spending their holiday in a run-down northern resort. Harriet is the older at 14. The 13-year-old unnamed narrator develops a crush on an unhappily married middle-aged man whom they call the Tsar. Led by Harriet they study his relationship with his wife, planning to humiliate him but things go too far with tragic results...

References