The Blue Flower by Penelope FitzgeraldFitzgerald’s final novel - published in 1995, five years before her death - dramatises the life of 18th-century German aristocrat Friederich von Hardenberg, otherwise known as the Romantic poet Novalis. It centres on his love, in his early 20s, for Sophie von Kühn, who is only 12 when he falls for her. (They become engaged but she dies of tuberculosis two years later.) Like all Fitzgerald’s novels, The Blue Flower is slim, and is full of shifting perspectives and brief impressionistic scenes. It’s regarded by many as her finest work, but didn’t make the 1995 Booker shortlist - a decision some see as inexplicable

Photograph: Jane Bown