Margins
Paget Family Saga book cover 1
Paget Family Saga book cover 2
Paget Family Saga book cover 3
Paget Family Saga
Series · 3 books · 1977-1982

Books in series

The Smile of the Stranger book cover
#1

The Smile of the Stranger

1977

The daughter of a self-exiled Englishman has many exciting adventures with the agent of the Prince Regent and falls in love with a man who resembles her hero, Charles the First
The Weeping Ash book cover
#2

The Weeping Ash

1980

Two extraordinary tales, and many fates, intertwine in this magnificent novel of India and England in the last years of the eighteenth century. Sixteen-year-old Fanny Paget, newly married to the odious Captain Paget, had come to live with him and his grown daughters at the Hermitage, a house lent to them by distant relatives. There Fanny will suffer at her husband's hands almost inconceivable humiliation and torment. But trained in duty by a clergyman father, she endeavors to make the best of her loveless marriage and is befriended by Lord Egremont, the local Grandee, and his charming mistress. Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away, in northern India, two remarkable people, Scylla and Carolman Paget, twin cousins of the hateful Captain, have begun a seemingly impossible flight for their lives, pursued by the soldiers of a vengeful maharajah. On their journey, by foot, elephant, camel, horse, raft and sail, they are helped by the dashing Colonel Cameron, and American adventurer. After crossing the savage kingdoms of Kafiristan, Afghanistan, Persia, and Turkey, the twins encounter further dangers by sea but finally arrive at their cousin's house in England. In the Hermitage, though, a dark and violent confrontation awaits them—and a series of passionate acts ensue which are to change forever not only Fanny Paget's life but also the lives of her two cousins and all involved with the household...
The Girl from Paris book cover
#3

The Girl from Paris

1982

Ellen Paget takes a position as a governess-companion to an aristocratic French family in Paris at the height of the Second Empire, but tragedy and scandal force her to return to England

Author

Joan Aiken
Joan Aiken
Author · 100 books

Joan Aiken was a much loved English writer who received the MBE for services to Children's Literature. She was known as a writer of wild fantasy, Gothic novels and short stories. She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972). Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world. Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski. Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax. Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.

548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2025 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved