Other editions of book In This House of Brede

Philippa Talbot leaves her Civil Service career for a new calling - to join an enclosed order of Benedictine nuns. In this small community, each crisis is guided by the Abbess and the Sisters' shared bond of faith. It is here that Philippa must learn to forgive and forget the past. The story, with its personality clashes, power struggles and overwhelming humanity in both the pettiness and the depth of the characters, is absorbing, and yet this book is more than just a story - one woman's personal growth as she enters a monastic order and slowly comes to terms with leading a religious life.

"A novel of sensitive dedication." -The Atlantic Monthly "Rumer Godden deals precisely with the theme of the religious life . . . as representing 'the heart of holiness of the Church.' It is at once a life of great peace and often equally intense struggle." -America magazine This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community. In this gripping narrative of the crises surrounding the ancient Brede abbey, Rumer Godden penetrates to the mysterious, inner heart of a religious community-a place of complexity and conflict, as well as joy and love. It is a place where Philippa, to her own surprise and her friends' astonishment, finds her life by losing it.