Winner of the Booker Prize the beautiful romantic and gorgeously philosophical Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner is part of our Penguin Essential series which spotlights the very best of our modern classicsThe Hotel du Lac was a dignified building a house of repute a traditional establishment used to welcoming the prudent the welltodo the retired the selfeffacing the respected patrons of an earlier eraInto the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams Edith has been exiled from home after embarrassing herself and her friends She has refused to sacrifice her ideals and remains stubbornly single But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville and her chance to escape from a life of humiliating loneliness is renewed A classic a book which will be read with pleasure a hundred years from now SpectatorHumorous witty touching and formidably clever The TimesHotel du Lac is written with a beautiful grave formality and it catches at the heart ObserverSo sure and so quietly commanding Hilary Mantel Guardian
