On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, Mrs Palfrey, recently widowed, arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are a mixed bunch - magnificently flawed and eccentric - living off crumbs of affection and an obsessive interest in the relentless round of hotel meals. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper. And then one day, Mrs Palfrey encounters the handsome young writer Ludo...Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1971, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is one of Elizabeth Taylor's funniest and most finely wrought examinations of the casual cruelty we inflict upon each other.
