''Poignant and inspiring'' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

''The World My Wilderness . . . had a powerful effect on me as a young reader'' HERMIONE LEE, GUARDIAN

''An elegiac, evocative depiction of the aftermath of the Second World War'' PARIS REVIEW It is 1946 and the people of France and England are facing the aftermath of the War. Sent by her beautiful, indolent mother to England, Barbary Deniston is thrown into the care of her distinguished father and conventional stepmother. Barbary has spent her childhood years in the sunshine of Provence. During the War, she ran wild with the Maquis, experiencing collaboration, betrayal and resistance. In peacetime the young woman has been taken away from all she knows and placed into the drab austerity of post-war London life.

Confused and unhappy, she discovers the flowering bomb craters around St Paul''s Cathedral. Here, in the bombed heart of London, with the outcasts living on the edge of society, she finds an echo of the wilderness of Provence and is forced to confront the wilderness within herself.

''Rose Macaulay is ripe for rediscovery'' THE TIMES ''A pleasure and a triumph'' ERIC LINKLATER ''One of her very wittiest books'' OBSERVER Denham Dobie has been brought up in Andorra by her father, a retired clergyman. On his death, she is snatched from this reclusive life and thrown into the social whirl of London by her sophisticated relatives. Denham, however, provides a candid response to the niceties of ''civilised'' behaviour. Crewe Train is Macaulay''s wittiest social satire. The reactions of Denham to the manners and modes of the highbrow circle in which she finds herself provide a devastating - and very funny - social commentary as well as a moving story.This bitingly funny, elegantly written comedy of manners is as absorbing and entertaining today as on the book''s first publication in 1926.

''Poignant and inspiring'' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

''The World My Wilderness . . . had a powerful effect on me as a young reader'' HERMIONE LEE, GUARDIAN

''An elegiac, evocative depiction of the aftermath of the Second World War'' PARIS REVIEW It is 1946 and the people of France and England are facing the aftermath of the War. Sent by her beautiful, indolent mother to England, Barbary Deniston is thrown into the care of her distinguished father and conventional stepmother. Barbary has spent her childhood years in the sunshine of Provence. During the War, she ran wild with the Maquis, experiencing collaboration, betrayal and resistance. In peacetime the young woman has been taken away from all she knows and placed into the drab austerity of post-war London life.

Confused and unhappy, she discovers the flowering bomb craters around St Paul''s Cathedral. Here, in the bombed heart of London, with the outcasts living on the edge of society, she finds an echo of the wilderness of Provence and is forced to confront the wilderness within herself.

''Rose Macaulay is ripe for rediscovery'' THE TIMES ''A pleasure and a triumph'' ERIC LINKLATER ''One of her very wittiest books'' OBSERVER Denham Dobie has been brought up in Andorra by her father, a retired clergyman. On his death, she is snatched from this reclusive life and thrown into the social whirl of London by her sophisticated relatives. Denham, however, provides a candid response to the niceties of ''civilised'' behaviour. Crewe Train is Macaulay''s wittiest social satire. The reactions of Denham to the manners and modes of the highbrow circle in which she finds herself provide a devastating - and very funny - social commentary as well as a moving story.This bitingly funny, elegantly written comedy of manners is as absorbing and entertaining today as on the book''s first publication in 1926.