'A remarkable and beautiful book' Daily Telegraph

'Like Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca or Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Black Narcissus is one of those rare novels that combine huge popular appeal with emotional subtlety and literary skill' Anne Chisholm

High in the Himalayas, the old mountaintop palace shines like a jewel. Built for the General's harem, laughter and music once floated out over the gorge. But now it sits abandoned; windswept and haunting.

The General's son bestows the palace to the Sisters of Mary, and 'the House of Women', as it was once known, becomes the Convent of St Faith. Close to the heavens, the nuns feel inspired, working fervently to establish their school and hospital. But the isolation and emptiness of the mountain become increasingly unsettling, and passions long repressed emerge with tragic consequences . . .

The basis for Powell & Pressburger's Academy Award-winning 1947 film, Rumer Godden's much-admired classic novel tells the story of a sisterhood of nuns on a mission in Himalayan India.A remarkable and beautiful bookA remarkable novel. One in a thousandLike Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca or Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, Black Narcissus is one of those rare novels that combines huge popular appeal with emotional subtlety and literary skillGodden's wonderful book sets out a complex vision of the variety, necessity and danger of desire, rendered into a story that is completely pleasurable. I envy anyone reading it for the first time.[Godden has] a genius for storytelling[A] beautiful novelAll [Godden's novels] have one important thing in common: They are beautifully and simply wrought by a woman of depth and sensitivity