Harriet Said was the first novel written by Beryl Bainbridge, based on the Parker-Hulme murder. Although completed in 1958 it was rejected by several publishers in the late fifties, one of whom wrote: The manuscript was thought lost but was found by one publisher, returned to the author and finally published by Duckworth in 1972, and by George Braziller in the US the following year. It was inspired by newspaper reports of a murder case involving two young girls in New Zealand. It concerns two schoolgirls spending their holiday in a run-down northern resort. Harriet is the older at 14. The... 13-year-old unnamed narrator develops a crush on an unhappily married middle-aged man whom they call the Tsar. Led by Harriet they study his relationship with his wife, planning to humiliate him. Their plan quickly goes wrong, however, with tragic results.
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