O Caledonia

'I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book' Maggie O'Farrell
'A sparky, funny work of genius' Ali Smith
'The reader feels unalloyed joy on every page' Independent

At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother's black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the sixteen years of Janet's short life.

A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll's house.

A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin Lila.

A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination.


A W&N Essential with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell

'Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up' David Nicholls

'A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour' Penelope Lively


Readers love this classic:

'Macabre, funny and sad. Beautifully written' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Dizzying heights and depths of despair' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Poetically written ... I will read it over and over' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Poetic, magical, disturbing ... and comforting' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'I am so happy that I chanced across this book, whilst simultaneously being devastated that I have only just discovered it' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐