The Chinese Garden

Rosemary Manning's 1962 gem The Chinese Garden is a delicate and finely crafted novel of the discovery -- and betrayal -- of love. In a girls' boarding school in the late 1920s, a world of iron-willed authority, frigid rooms, and forbidden friendships, sixteen-year-old Rachel struggles to find a place for herself. When a rebellious student introduces her to a mystical, secret part of the grounds, the 'Chinese garden', Rachel becomes torn between this hidden world of sensuality and pleasure and the formidable, controlling headmistress who inspires Rachel's intellectual growth.