Memoirs of a Midget

Memoirs of a Midget is a surrealistic novel and told in the first person by Miss M., who is playfully referred to as "Midgetina" by her faithless friend, Fanny. Hers is the story of a person who, though at home in nature and literature, is physically, spiritually, and intellectually out of place in the world. Notwithstanding her stature Miss M.'s intellect is large and her perceptions preternaturally sharp. Most of the book's narrative covers the events of the twelve-month period between Miss M.'s twentieth and twenty-first years as she attempts to make her way in the world alone after the death of her parents. The book was published to high praise in 1921 and in that year received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Rebecca West later included Memoirs of a Midget on a list of the "best imaginative productions of the last decade in England".