The interest which contemporary society shows in the past, with its complex range of specific problems (reassessment, retrieval, preservation, forgetfulness, and commodification) is a topical issue in the field of humanities. This interest is a pre-eminent feature of the Western fiction of the 1980s and the 1990s as well, and it seems that even the literary works written after the turn of the millennium have not given it up. Out of the many writers who have dealt with the past and its relationship with the present and future in British contemporary literature, we have chosen to focus on Penelope Lively’s body of work precisely because her entire fiction examines this phenomenon consistently and thoroughly; therefore, we consider that reading her novels against the theories put forth by the critics of ‘the culture of memory’ may result into a satisfactory hermeneutical exercise, which could provide useful insights both into her texts and the phenomenon itself.