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Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (novel)Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a novel by Elizabeth Taylor. First published in 1971, it was her eleventh novel. It was shortlisted for the 1971 Booker Prize. The novel was adapted for television in 1973 and was the basis for a 2005 film, also called Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

Plot
The novel is set in London in the 1960s. The story takes place between January and late autumn of a single year. The recently widowed Laura Palfrey moves into the Claremont Hotel, where she joins a group of other elderly hotel residents. She has a daughter in Scotland and a grandson, Desmond, who lives in London and works at the British Museum. Having told the other residents that she has a grandson who will be visiting her, she is embarrassed by his failure to do so.

One afternoon she slips and falls on the pavement. Ludo Myers, a young man who lives in a basement apartment, sees her fall and helps her, taking her in, bandaging her cut leg, and calling a taxi to take her home. Ludo is an impoverished aspiring novelist who spends his days writing in the Banking Hall at Harrods in order to save money on heat. To thank him, Mrs. Palfrey invites Ludo to dinner at the Claremont the following week.

When she tells the waiter at the Claremont she is expecting a guest for dinner on Saturday, one of the other residents overhears and assumes that the visitor will be Mrs. Palfrey's grandson Desmond. Rather than correct her, Mrs. Palfrey seeks out Ludo at Harrods and asks him to pretend to be her grandson. The dinner is a success and Ludo and Mrs. Palfrey become friends, although he is also interested in her as a source for a novel he is writing.

Eventually, prompted by his mother, the real Desmond reluctantly goes to visit Mrs. Palfrey, who manages to hide his identity from the other residents and discourages him from returning, telling him that she cannot receive visitors at the Claremont.

One of the other residents, Mr. Osmond, invites Mrs. Palfrey to a Masonic Ladies' Night, where he makes her a proposal of marriage. Shocked and astonished, she refuses his proposal. Several days later, Mrs. Palfrey falls on the steps leaving the Claremont and is taken to hospital in an ambulance. Coincidentally, Desmond arrives soon after, having been again sent by his mother, and the residents do not believe him to be Mrs. Palfrey's grandson.

Ludo, who has also been to the Claremont and heard of the accident, visits Mrs. Palfrey in hospital, where he arranges for her to have a private room and brings her some of her personal possessions. Mrs. Palfrey develops pneumonia and dies in her sleep after a last visit from Ludo. The following day Ludo finishes writing his novel, whose title, They Weren't Allowed to Die There, is based on a remark Mrs. Palfrey made to him about the Claremont Hotel,

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