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Old Baggage
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  • Published: 15 January 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784161217
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $29.99

Old Baggage

Formats & editions
Paperback
15 Jan 2019
EBook
14 June 2018
Audiobook
4 Apr 2019
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Perfectly timed for the centenary of the women's vote in 2018, OLD BAGGAGE takes a unique approach to the suffragette story. Mattie was once a militant campaigner but now in middle age, she finds herself a purposeful woman without a purpose.

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Good Reads

'The work of a novelist in her prime' Daily Telegraph
'Wise and witty' Sarah Hughes, Observer
'Essential . . . Evans is a brilliant storyteller' Stylist
'A timely, bittersweet comic novel' Guardian
'A thoughtful, funny, companionable novel' Sunday Times
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What do you do next, after you've changed the world?

It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across a small wooden club - an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade.

Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women's Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement.

Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies. Giving the wooden club a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea - but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie's militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle that she stands for.

Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never, never given up the fight.
  • Published: 15 January 2019
  • ISBN: 9781784161217
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $29.99
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About the author

Lissa Evans

Lissa Evans has written books for both adults and children, including Their Finest Hour and a Half, longlisted for the Orange Prize, Small Change for Stuart, shortlisted for many awards including the Carnegie Medal and the Costa Book Awards and Crooked Heart, longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

portrait photo of Lissa Evans

Also by Lissa Evans

Picnic on Craggy Island
Small Bomb At Dimperley
V for Victory
Odd One Out
Spencer's List
Crooked Heart
Their Finest
See all

Praise for Old Baggage

Essential . . . Evans is a brilliant storyteller

Stylist

Wise and witty

Sarah Hughes, Observer

Lissa Evans writes with beguiling wit and vigour. I found myself utterly involved with her heroines, and the history is spot-on.

Jane Robinson, author of HEARTS AND MINDS

Old Baggage gives an inspiring model of womanhood. Moving, warm and wry. It is wonderful!

Marian Keyes

I loved Old Baggage. Such original characters, and so timely. And it made me weep at the end.

JoJo Moyes

Lissa Evans’s gift for comedy edged with satire and pathos is God-given . . . Mattie’s search for meaning and purpose, which hints at the darker undercurrents of people marginalised by their sex and era, will strike a chord with most.

Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail

Utterly wonderful and intelligent

India Knight, Sunday Times Magazine

This beautifully written story teems with atmosphere and perfect period detail but it’s the brave and brilliant Mattie that makes it unforgettable

Sunday Mirror

A thoughtful, funny, companionable novel, offering an invigoratingly fresh vantage on a well-trodden period

Patricia Nicol, Sunday Times

A timely, bittersweet comic novel

Guardian

A perfectly pitched, captivating read

Mail on Sunday

Joyously funny, much poignancy and social commentary. old Baggage is a gloriously entertaining, deeply moving novel.

S Magazine

"wonderfully rich tale about a clever, lovably nonconformist heroine"

Culture, The Sunday Times