A City of Bells

The story of a quiet cathedral town, of an orphan who finds a new home, of two people who fight to separate themselves from the ghost of a man whose mystery has cast a spell that only his return can break, and of a dream that can only end with a new dawn.

“Miss Goudge has the art of presenting men and women, to say nothing of children, as genuinely convincing persons, too human to be either wholly good or wholly bad - The Scotsman”

Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on April 24th 1900 in Wells, Somerset, where her father was Principal of Wells Theological College. Although she had privately intended writing as a career, her parents insisted she taught handicrafts in Oxford. She began writing in her spare time and her first novel ISLAND MAGIC, set in Guernsey, was a great success here and in America. GREEN DOLPHIN COUNTRY (1944) projected her to fame, netting a Literary Guild Award and a special prize of 30,000 from Louis B. Mayer of MGM before being filmed.

The first book in Elizabeth Goudge's enchanting Cathedral Trilogy. Returning injured from the Boer War, Jocelyn Irvin travels to the quiet cathedral town of Torminster. Welcomed there by his young cousin Hugh Anthony, his grandparents and their adopted daughter Henrietta, Jocelyn begins to rediscover his enjoyment of life. As he embraces old friendships and new relationships, Jocelyn becomes captivated by the mystery of writer Gabriel Ferranti, a man whose unexplained disappearance months before has cast a shadow which only his return can lift. A charming story of love, family and laying to rest ghosts of the past.

The story of a quiet cathedral town, of an orphan who finds a new home, of two people who fight to separate themselves from the ghost of a man whose mystery has cast a spell that only his return can break, and of a dream that can only end with a new dawn.

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