She had enough money for her holiday, and when it was over she would find useful work. Her plans were vague, but she would have plenty of time to think things out when she got to Cairn. One thing only was certain—she was never going back to prison again. Young Frances Field arrives in a scenic coastal village in Scotland, having escaped her dreary life as an orphan treated as little more than a servant by an uncle and aunt. Once there, she encounters an array of eccentric locals, the occasional roar of enemy planes overhead, and three army wives—Elise, Tommy, and Tillie—who become fast friends. Elise warns Frances of the discomforts of military life, but she’s inclined to disregard the advice when she meets the dashing and charming Captain Guy Tarlatan.The ensuing tale, one of D.E. Stevenson’s most cheerful and satisfying, is complicated by a local laird with a shady reputation, a Colonel’s daughter who's a bit too cosy with Guy, a spring reputed to guarantee marriage within a year to those who drink from it, and a series of misunderstandings only finally resolved in the novel’s harrowing climax.Spring Magic, first published in 1942, is here reprinted for the first time in more than three decades. Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press are also reprinting four more of Stevenson's best works—Smouldering Fire, Mrs. Tim Carries On, Mrs. Tim Gets a Job, and Mrs. Tim Flies Home. This new edition includes an introduction by Alexander McCall Smith.“The author tells of what befell a young woman who, while on a seaside holiday in Scotland, enters the social life surrounding a battalion of troops and of how she found personal happiness. Lively and charming.” Sunday Mercury“The cheeriest company . . . charmingly told” Sunday Times

    He spent a brief period working for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank before abandoning finance for writing, earning a living by journalism and selling stories to magazines. An enormously popular and prolific writer, he produced about 100 books. In Jeeves, the ever resourceful "gentleman's personal gentleman", and the good-hearted young blunderer Bertie Wooster, he created two of the best known and best loved characters in twentieth century literature. Their exploits, first collected in Carry On, Jeeves, were chronicled in fourteen books, and have been repeatedly adapted for television, radio and the stage. Wodehouse also created many other comic figures, notably Lord Emsworth, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, Psmith and the numerous members of the Drones Club. He was part-author and writer of fifteen straight plays and 250 lyrics for some 30 musical comedies. The... Name: P. G. Wodehouse Also Known As: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (full name); P. Brooke-Haven, Pelham Grenville, J. Plum, C. P. West, J. Walker Williams, and Basil Windham Date of Birth: October 15, 1881 Place of Birth: Guildford, Surrey, England Date of Death: February 14, 1975 Place of Death: Southampton, New York Education: Dulwich College, 1894-1900 Biography Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in 1881 in Guildford, the son of a civil servant, and educated at Dulwich College. He spent a brief period working for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank before abandoning finance for writing, earning a living by journalism and selling stories to magazines. An enormously popular and prolific writer, he produced about 100 books. In Jeeves, the ever resourceful "gentleman's personal gentleman", and the good-hearted young blunderer Bertie Wooster, he created two of the best known and best loved characters in twentieth century literature. Their exploits, first collected in

    Here, she experiences the happiest years of her life as she watches the seasons come and go until, one November day, she stands poised for independence - and Spain.

    "There were thousands killed last night, so the bus conductor told me."“You certainly are our little ray of sunshine,” said Elsie scornfully.Marjorie Wilenski's only novel, as biting and funny as Barbara Pym at her crankiest, follows an office of women translators at the fictional Ministry of Foreign Intelligence in London as they bicker, manuever, and shift allegiances just before and then in the thick of the London Blitz. Its two main characters are sharply contrasted — the clever, efficient but terminally bitter middle-aged Elsie Pearne and the cheerful, pretty young newcomer Anne Shepley-Rice, whose once affluent family has fallen on hard times. Their colleagues include a fresh air fanatic, a busybody, an inept supervisor and her trusty deputy, the dithering, chatty Mrs Jolly, and a former lady’s companion who delights in bad news and disaster.The cast of Table Two are instantly recognizable to any office worker of today. But this portrayal of a 1940s office is a rare treasure for modern readers, showing, with vivid detail and dark humour, how a group of independent, capable women experienced some of the darkest days of World War II.'The most striking novel about women war workers this war has produced' Elizabeth Bowen

    The experience of many users of the book has made it apparent that such a division is unnatural and awkward at both ends of the period, so in the present revised edition there are additions at the beginning and at the end. Some important examples of the work of John Skelton, Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Elyot and William Tyndale give the reader an opportunity to understand the currents of feeling and thought in the early Tudor period which indicated that a renaissance and a reformation were taking place. At the end of the century, two great figures, Ben Jonson and John Donne, are now included to represent the tendencies of the future and to illustrate high achievement outside the prevailing Elizabethan tradition. Certain additions to the works of Spenser, Hoby, Ralegh, Nashe and Drayton are also included." [Taken from "Preface to the Revised Edition", xvii]

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    In his introduction to this selection, first made for Pelican in 1942 and now enlarged and reprinted, Sir William Emrys Williams points out that the Essay, ‘has a multitude of forms and manners, and scarcely any rules and regulations.’ Although many of the pieces chosen for this volume are such well-known ones as Charles Lamb’s ‘In Praise of Chimney Sweepers’ or De Quincy’s memorable commentary on an episode in ‘Macbeth’, an endeavour has been made to remind readers that Addison, for example, wrote other and better essays than the few which are usually included in anthologies. Modern writers such as Hilaire Belloc, JB Priestly, Aldous Huxley, Robert Lynd, Ivor Brown, Harold Nicholson. EV Lucas, and VS Pritchett are given a fair share of representation."