Laura Del-Rivo, Daffodil on the Pavement

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1967

Places

United Kingdom (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Daffodil on the Pavement

(1967) was the second novel by Laura Del-Rivo (b. 1934), appearing six years after her first,

The Furnished Room

(1961) – a long gap for an emergent writer. Three years later

Daffodil

appeared in a Pan paperback edition as

Animals

(1970), Del-Rivo’s preferred title, which signals the animal imagery that recurs throughout the novel.

Daffodil contrasts two protagonists, Jacob Hardcastle and Maggie Easterbrook, by presenting slices of their lives, which sometimes intertwine, from the 1940s into the 1960s. Jacob, ambitious, optimistic, hard-driving, drops out of school and a conventional career path but still retains, like his father, a “hard-headed […] work ethic” (191) and becomes a successful writer and controversialist. Maggie, self-deprecating,

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2843 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Daffodil on the Pavement". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35052, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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