The Joyful Delaneys
by Hugh Walpole
A novel about spring and autumn, about old love and young people, about London and an old house that is about to die. When Fred Delaney wished the revolutionary poet Patrick Munden a happy birthday, he enthusiastically repeated his desire for himself, because the year had little promise. True, under the same roof they had their own cheerful family, but what would they do if the house had to completely leave in a hundred and fifty years? What about his wife, Meg, she swims; and about their beautiful daughter Kitty; Or their son, Bullock, who wrote novels that paid for cigarettes by writing for Punch? The story of what happened that year to Delaney and the rooms that lived on the second, third and fourth floors is a picture of the past, present, and future. One of Walpole's hottest and most human stories.
