Synopses & Reviews
A major film released in 2008,
Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day is a delightful, funny, lighthearted novel. First published in 1938, it was reissued in the United Kingdom in 2000, complete with thirty-five original illustrations, and has sold over 22,000 copies.
Miss Pettigrew, an approaching-middle-age governess, was accustomed to a household of unruly English children. When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. The alluring nightclub singer, Delysia LaFosse, becomes her new employer, and Miss Pettigrew encounters a kind of glamour that she had only met before at the movies. Over the course of a single day, both women are changed forever.
Review
"Why has it taken more than half a century for this wonderful flight of humor to be rediscovered?" Guardian (UK)
Review
"The sweetest grown-up book in the world." Sunday Times (UK)
Review
"Miss Pettigrew follows Miss LaFosse from boudoir to nightclub in a daze of happiness. Drink, dance, drugs, sex; Miss Pettigrew demurs with a spinster-ish blush... then in she dives. She know her day must end and her dreary life begin again, but when the magical 24 hours have passed Miss Pettigrew is a changed woman. Miss Pettigrew is perhaps the happiest, most ebullient piece of fiction ever written for adults. It takes, sadly, far less than a day to read, but the sparkle doesn't fade for weeks." Newsday
Review
"Miss Pettigrew may not be a literary classic, but only the harshest of readers could fail to be charmed by the delightful heroine... Chronicled to the minute over a 24-hour time span, it is impossible to switch off." Time Out
About the Author
Winifred Watson (1907-2002) lived in Newcastle and wrote six novels in all; she chose to stop writing after the birth of her son in 1941. The Times interviewed her at age 94 when Persephone Books reissued the book in 2000. The headline was "Bodice-Ripping Fame at 94."