Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage' (Nina Bawden) yet 'it makes compulsive reading' in its description of an ordinary family struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl. Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm intelligence in the tradition of Elizabeth Gaskell.

    Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years. The inspiration for the brilliant Joseph Losey/Harold Pinter film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, The Go-Between is a masterpiece—a richly layered, spellbinding story about past and present, naiveté and knowledge, and the mysteries of the human heart. This volume includes, for the first time ever in North America, Hartley's own introduction to the novel.

    Was Romaine Heilger another captive of handsome Leonard Vole's magnetism - his plaything? Was this young woman playing a game of deceit that would send her lover to the gallows for a crime?The accused in the prisoner's box, the judge, jury, and packed courtroom waited as Romaine mounted the stand to deliver the testimony that has made this the masterpiece of suspense and shock.

    The stories collected here range from delightfully barbed portraits of the British upper classes to an alternative ending to Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust; from a "missing chapter" in the life of Charles Ryder, the nostalgic hero of Brideshead Revisited, to a plot-packed morality tale that Waugh composed at a very tender age; from an epistolary lark in the voice of "a young lady of leisure" to a darkly comic tale of scandal in a remote (and imaginary) African outpost.The Complete Stories is a dazzling distillation of Waugh's genius-abundant evidence that one of the twentieth century's most admired and enjoyed English novelists was also a master of the short form.

    Lorimer's quiet content. ... Both wrote; each admired the other's work. Lucy possessed what Gray knew she herself would never have, a quality which for want of a better name she called "saleability."In what is surely Molly Clavering's most autobiographical novel, two middle-aged women writers, close friends and neighbours, offer one another advice and support while navigating life in a lively Border village. Lucy Lorimer, the more successful author, with her four children, in-laws, and grandchildren gathered for a summer reunion, must try to avert disaster in one daughter's marriage, help a daughter-in-law restless with mundane married life after flying planes in the war, and deal with the awkward reappearance of an old flame. Unmarried Grace ('Gray') Douglas, meanwhile, has struggles of her own, but is drawn delightfully into her friend's difficulties.In real life, Molly Clavering was herself for many years a neighbour and close friend of bestselling author D.E. Stevenson. First published in 1953, Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer is not only an irresistible family story, but undoubtedly provides some indication of the inspiring friendship between these two brilliantly talented women. This new edition includes an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford.

    Friends beg her to go back to the security of Camberley. But the aunt who knows her best says, "Sophie will do as she likes. She always does." What she likes, in this case, is to stay in India --- and not the Westernized India either, but in a tiny villa in the beautiful Vale of Kashmir. Sophie is determined to make a home in this Eden, and to live with the Indians and like it. Pundit Pramatha Kaul, her wise landlord, shakes his head. Profit David, her merchant friend, warns her. But Sophie remains unruffled.Then matters quietly begin to go wrong...~ synopsis from dustjacket (abridged)

    The book is dedicated to Tirzah Garwood (then Ravilious and later Swanzy) but the woodcuts are not by her because she had died two years before. They were done by a friend, Malcolm Ford (who, like Stella Martin Currey’s husband, taught at Colchester Royal Grammar School).These are the contents for January: there is a quotation, as there is before every month, from the British Merlin (1677), an Almanac known nowadays as Rider’s British Merlin. It starts ‘This is the Season for good husbands to lop and prune superfluous Branches and Fruit trees’ and ends: ‘The best physick is warm diet, warm Cloaths, good Fires, and a merry, honest Wife.’ Then there is a ten-page essay on ‘Books for the Family’. Of course it is now a bit out of date, but the mention of Pamela Brown, Eve Garnett and Belloc’s Cautionary Verses (among dozens of good suggestions) can never be dismissed. After this is a funny piece about a visit to the hairdresser. Next there are a few pages about a burst pipe, a cake recipe, a description of A Visit to the Tower of London, an extract from Jane Eyre and finally an extract from our own Tea with Mr Rochester.November again has an extract from the British Merlin (‘Set Crab Tree stocks to graft on’), eight pages on the art of embroidery (‘One of the loveliest and most lovable rooms I have ever seen had copies of old flower paintings and they were all embroidered in delicate stitches on very fine yellow silk… Another fascinating adventure in embroidery is to copy an old map’). Then there are suggestions for a Guy Fawkes Party (‘sausage rolls, gingerbread men, conspirator biscuits and toffee’), a quite detailed piece on ‘deciding whether you can eat the mushrooms which grow in the garden’, a recipe for the said biscuits (you cut them to look like conspirators), a short piece on visiting an art gallery with children (pick out the animals eg. the little dog in The Arnolfini Portrait, the dragon in St George and the Dragon), an extract from Elizabeth and her German Garden by our very own Elizabeth von Arnim, and finally an extract from Emma.But it was her novelist’s eye and ear that makes One Woman’s Year such a gem. In between the sometimes period details are many extremely useful pieces on dressing-up boxes, phrases to be used in thank-you letters, an extract from The Young Visiters, or which flowers to have in vases for every month of the year. One cannot imagine anyone who would not find this book both useful and endearing.

    In Elizabethan England, eleven-year-old Hugh Copplestone runs away from the home of his cruel aunt to seek his fortune in the company of strolling players who travel throughout the countryside.

    Midge stayed on. While the war lasted Mrs. Custance had accepted her as part of the war-effort; it was only in the past year or two that Mrs. Midge had been transferred to the category which Mrs. Custance described as "people we could manage without."Elizabeth Fair’s rollicking second novel takes place in Little Mallin, where village life is largely dominated by preparations for the August Festival. Out of such ordinary material Fair weaves a tale of conflict, scheming, misunderstanding — and of course romance.Among the villagers are a vicar dreaming of ancient Greece; his wife, largely concerned with getting their daughter married off; the melancholic Colonel Ashford; the eccentric Eustace Templer and his nephew; not to mention Mrs. Midge and her delicate son. The author said the novel was meant for people who "prefer not to take life too seriously." Compton Mackenzie said it was "in the best tradition of English humour."Furrowed Middlebrow is delighted to make available, for the first time in over half a century, all six of Elizabeth Fair’s irresistible comedies of domestic life. These new editions all feature an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford.

    An elderly clergyman stationed in the Australian bush is called to the bedside of a dying derelict. In his delirium Stevie tells a story of England in 1983 through the medium of a squadron air pilot in the service of Queen Elizabeth II.

     Juliet, an only child, is delighted to have Ellen, or Fenny, as she becomes, as her governess. And when Fenny is introduced to Madeleine’s close friend, Lucrezia Warner and their new tutor Daniel, her life seems to take on another level of happiness. Though she is not entirely sure that his feelings for her are as strong as her feelings for him… When Juliet and her father return to London, Fenny decides to take up employment with the Warners and even though Daniel’s time with the Warners ends along with all chance of romance, Fenny’s love of Italy and her love for the children fulfils her future. Unmarried and following a series of unfortunate relationships, she finds herself content with watching the children grow up and lead their lives. But things don’t seem as idyllic as the farms, hillsides and valleys that surround them as fascism threatens the heart of Italy. As appealing as the views are, life at the villa is far from perfect…. Praise for Lettice Cooper ‘Certainly Lettice Cooper’s finest novel’ – Storm Jameson Lettice Cooper was an English writer. She began to write stories when she was seven, and studied Classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford graduating in 1918. Her first novel, The Lighted Room, one of ten novels written whilst she was in Yorkshire, was published in 1925. Cooper went to live with her sister in Bayswater, London, and spent a year as Associate Editor of the Time and Tide. She published twenty novels, in addition to children’s books and non-fiction, including biographies of Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson.

    The corseted, petticoated Sylvesters are no ordinary females. They are as fair-tempered as they are big and strong, the wives of modestly prosperous farmers who can stand up to the heat of a parlor—their pride and joy—as well as a scorching harvest field. And the men they chose for husbands are their equals. Today is cause for celebration: The youngest Sylvester brother is arriving with his bride-to-be.   But Fanny Davis will change all their lives. The slender, petite woman is given to unnamed ailments and is full of secrets. Where did she come from? What does she really want from the bumpkin she agreed to marry? None of the Sylvester ladies can imagine the tempest that will strike their peaceful farm when the deadly Miss Davis gets to work.

    His favoured employees, invited to his country house at weekends, are envied; his children 'still rich and safe and spoiled', appear to lead a charmed existence. The success of his reputation is such that Baron believes it himself. Only Celia, his eldest daughter, knows that beneath this facade her father weaves a thread of tyranny which ensnares and damages all who come close to him- his son Tobias, whose affections disguise his sense of inferiority; Liz who struggles to meet her father's perfection; the upright Anthony Carey whom Baron regards as a touchstone of truth, and even Harry Levitt, himself a seasoned dissembler. For those who are shadowed by a man whose power rests on hypocrisy and self-deceit, inevitably become tarnished by the same qualities.

    They couldn't be more different: Jane is a rather incompetent vicar's wife, who always looks as if she is about to feed the chickens, while Prudence, a pristine hothouse flower, has the most unsuitable affairs. With the move to a rural parish, Jane is determined to find her friend the perfect man. She learns that matchmaking has as many pitfalls as housewifery...