Every journalist sent to interview her comes away with a different account of her parentage and early years.
Vida has spent six decades creating various life histories for herself - many of them outlandish and all of them inventions.
The novel begins on the day Margaret Lea, an antiquarian bookseller in Cambridge, receives an unexpected letter from “England’s best-loved writer”, the reclusive and enigmatic Vida Winter. Setterfield pays homage to the classic Gothic novel - especially to Jane Eyre which plays a key role in the text - yet she skilfully reimagines it to offer a riveting multi-layered mystery tale. The Thirteenth Tale is however, far more than the sum of all these parts. Fog-shrouded moors and snow-induced powercuts. Mysterious disappearances and appearances. Twins who communicate via a private language. As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield’s debut novel, is perfect for a game of “spot the Gothic trope”Ī ruined house full of attics and hiding spaces. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Now old and ailing, she, at last, wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself - all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. so begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.
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