{"id":74707,"date":"2026-03-28T15:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T19:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/?p=74707"},"modified":"2026-03-28T15:18:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T19:18:55","slug":"sub-rosa-april-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/2026\/03\/28\/sub-rosa-april-selection\/","title":{"rendered":"Sub Rosa April Selection: Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-74709\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Palfrey.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"360\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/1028\/9781681375649\"><strong>Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont<\/strong><\/a> <strong>by Elzabeth Taylor<\/strong> is the Sub Rosa selection for April. The book discussion will be held on <strong>Saturday, May 2 at 6:30pm<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Taylor is especially brilliant on the battles waged by an aging person: against revolving doors, slippery surfaces and time itself.&#8221;<\/strong> \u2014Molly Young, The New York Times<\/p>\n<p>On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. \u201cIf it\u2019s not nice, I needn\u2019t stay,\u201d she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThree elderly widows and one old man . . . who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind\u201d serve for her fellow residents, and there is the staff, too, and they are one and all lonely.<\/p>\n<p>What is Mrs. Palfrey to do with herself now that she has all the time in the world? Go for a walk. Go to a museum. Go to the end of the block. Well, she does have her grandson who works at the British Museum, and he is sure to visit any day.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Palfrey prides herself on having always known \u201cthe right thing to do,\u201d but in this new situation she discovers that resource is much reduced. Before she knows it, in fact, she tries something else.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth Taylor\u2019s final and most popular novel is as unsparing as it is, ultimately, heartbreaking.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-74708 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Elizabeth_Taylor.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">Elizabeth Taylor<\/b>(1912\u20131975) was an English short-story writer and novelist. She held a variety of positions, including librarian and governess, before marrying a businessman in 1936. Nine years later, her first novel,<i>At Mrs. Lippincote\u2019s<\/i>, appeared. She would go on to publish eleven more novels, including&amp;<i>Angel<\/i>,<i>A Game of Hide and Seek<\/i>, and&amp; <i>A View of the Harbour<\/i>(all available from NYRB Classics); several volumes of short stories, many of which are collected in <i>You\u2019ll Enjoy It When You Get There<\/i>(NYRB Classics); and a children\u2019s book,<i>Mossy Trotter<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont by Elzabeth Taylor is the Sub Rosa selection for April. The book discussion will be held on Saturday, May 2 at 6:30pm. &ldquo;Taylor is especially brilliant on the battles waged by an aging person: against revolving doors, slippery surfaces and time itself.&rdquo; &mdash;Molly Young, The New York Times On a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reading-group","category-world-lit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}