First published in 1946, Marguerite Reilly is the fictionalised story of an Irish immigrant family across four generations, struggling to make good in the Victorian and post-Victorian era. "The book engages the reader's attention from the first page. It is acutely observed and beautifully written." - The Spectator"A formidable piece of characterisation" - The Fifeshire AdvertiserMarguerite Reilly is "a dominating, deplorable and heroic character, on a scale that English fiction seldom affords" - Elizabeth Bowen, The TatlerElizabeth Lake was the pen-name adopted by Inez Pearn, a girl from a working-class Irish immigrant background who won a scholarship to Oxford in the early 1930s and later joined the campaign for Britain to provide support for the Spanish Republic during the Civil War. She went on to produce five novels.