I bought this book quite a long time ago from a used bookstore that my boyfriend and I used to visit once a month or so. It was run by a friendly guy who also ran the numbers (we learned later), and eventually this sideline led to the bookstore being closed. But for a while, 5 years maybe, he had a wonderfully eclectic collection of used paperbacks, and it was because of him that I came to read Margaret Drabble. It's a little fragile now: I have to hold it carefully so as not to crack the spine, but I'm reluctant to get a new copy. The woman on the front cover is possibly Margaret herself, which is a little odd, but maybe not, since it's likely that there's a bit of autobiography behind the plot about Clara, a scholarship girl, who leaves her provincial industrial town for London, where she meets the golden Debenhams.