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Digital Audiobook
The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault
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The Friendly Young Ladies

Author
Mary Renault
Narrator
Imogen Church, Joan Walker
Publisher
Little, Brown Book Group
Publish Date
22 October 2026
Run Time
12 hours 32 minutes
Format
Audiobook
Genre
Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Classic fiction: literary and general, Fiction: literary and general non-genre, Romance
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What to expect

Elsie, sheltered and naive, is seventeen and unhappy. Stifled by life with her bickering parents in a bleak Cornish village, she falls in love with the first presentable young man she meets - Peter, an ambitious London doctor. On his advice she runs away from home and goes to live with her sister Leonora, who escaped eight years earlier.

But there are surprises in store for conventional Elsie as her sister has a rather bohemian lifestyle: not only does Leo live in a houseboat on the Thames where she writes Westerns for a living, she shares her boat - and her bed - with Helen. When Peter pays a visit, turning his attention from one 'friendly young lady' to the next, he disturbs the calm for each of them - with results unforeseen by all . . .

Mary Renault wrote this delightfully provocative novel in 1943 partly in answer to the despair characteristic of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness. The result is this witty and stylish social comedy.

Critics Review

  • Undeniably charming . . . has an enormous nostalgic attractiveness

    New Yorker

  • Written with rare insight

    Boston Globe

  • A very lively and human story

    New York Times Book Review

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Details
Author
Mary Renault
Narrator
Imogen Church, Joan Walker
Duration
12 hours 32 minutes
Release Date
22 October 2026
ISBN
9780349022802
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Little, Brown Book Group
Genre
Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Classic fiction: literary and general, Fiction: literary and general non-genre, Romance

Synopsis

Elsie, sheltered and naive, is seventeen and unhappy. Stifled by life with her bickering parents in a bleak Cornish village, she falls in love with the first presentable young man she meets - Peter, an ambitious London doctor. On his advice she runs away from home and goes to live with her sister Leonora, who escaped eight years earlier. <br><br>But there are surprises in store for conventional Elsie as her sister has a rather bohemian lifestyle: not only does Leo live in a houseboat on the Thames where she writes Westerns for a living, she shares her boat - and her bed - with Helen. When Peter pays a visit, turning his attention from one 'friendly young lady' to the next, he disturbs the calm for each of them - with results unforeseen by all . . .<br><br>Mary Renault wrote this delightfully provocative novel in 1943 partly in answer to the despair characteristic of Radclyffe Hall's <i>The Well of Loneliness</i>. The result is this witty and stylish social comedy.

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