Virago Modern Classics – serie

FALL IN LOVE WITH THE NOVEL THAT INSPIRED TAYLOR SWIFT'An unforgettable masterpiece . . . filled with razor-sharp tension, escalating dread, and a twist that chills to the bone' FREIDA MCFADDEN'It's the book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY'Rebecca has woven its way into the fabric of our culture with all the troubling power of myth or dream. A stunning book' SARAH PERRY***He did not belong to me at all, he belonged to Rebecca. . .Everyone knows that Maxim de Winter was obsessed with his glamorous wife - and devastated by her tragic death. So when he proposes to a shy, anxious young woman after a whirlwind meeting in the South of France, no one is more surprised than the new bride herself. But when they reach Manderley, his beautiful, isolated Cornish mansion, the second Mrs de Winter begins to realise that every inch of her new home - and everyone in it - still belongs to Rebecca.'The perfect story by the perfect storyteller' JOANNA CANNON'One of my all-time favourites' ERIN MORGENSTERN'Will chill you as much as any thriller' ALICE SLATER'Daphne du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings' STEPHEN KING'She's so deviant. So fascinating' EMERALD FENNELL

The bestselling book that inspired the cult classic film, Girl, Interrupted, starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie."Not since Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar has a personal account of life in a mental hospital achieved as much popularity and acclaim" TIME "Intelligent and painful" Guardian"Poignant, astonishing memoir" New York TimesIn 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital to be treated for depression. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital renowned for its famous clientele - Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor and Ray Charles.A clear-sighted, unflinching work that provokes questions about our definitions of sane and insane, Kaysen's extraordinary memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.

A BESTSELLING NOVEL AND MAJOR FILM STARRING MERYL STREEP AND JACK NICHOLSON'I have bought more copies of this book to give to people, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, than any other . . . Heartburn is the perfect, bittersweet, sobbingly funny, all-too-true confessional novel' NIGELLA LAWSON'Never fails to make me laugh . . . I cannot get through more than five lines without cracking up' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, author of QUEENIE, RED'A perfect example of Ephron's gift for turning tragedy into comedy' PAULA HAWKINS, author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN'She is wit without cynicism, the ultimate romantic' GAIL COLLINS, NEW YORK TIMESSeven months into her pregnancy, Rachel discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. The fact that this woman has a 'neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb' is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel is a cookery writer, and between trying to win Mark back and wishing him dead, she offers us some of her favourite recipes. Heartburn is a roller coaster of love, betrayal, loss and most satisfyingly revenge.This is Nora Ephron's (screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle) roman à clef: 'I always thought during the pain of the marriage that one day it would make a funny book,' she once said - And it is!Books included in the VMC fortieth anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

'Such a delightful reading experience' Virginia Evans, bestselling author of The Correspondent, winner of the Women's Prize 2026'Unmitigated delight from cover to cover' DAILY TELEGRAPH'A real-life love story . . . A timeless period piece. Do read it' WALL STREET JOURNAL'Beguile an hour of your time and put you in tune with mankind' NEW YORK TIMESThis charming classic, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that will grab your heart and not let go.

NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily Collins. 'The moment I finished this story, I turned to page one and started it over again' MALORIE BLACKMAN'Excellent entertainment . . . du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings' STEPHEN KING'Rebecca is a masterpiece in which du Maurier pulls off several spectacular high-wire acts that many great writers wouldn't attempt' JIM CRACE, GUARDIAN On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the other woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.'As a new generation of readers are introduced to the wicked housekeeper Mrs Danvers and learn Maxim de Winter's terrible secret, this chilling, suspenseful tale is as fresh and readable as it was when it was first written' DAILY TELEGRAPH

DISCOVER THE DU MAURIER DARK ROMANCE COLLECTION'A brilliantly executed thriller' VOGUE'Daphne du Maurier has no equal' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'The master of slow-burning menace' STACEY HALLS'Her influence on fiction is incalculable, her imagination unsurpassable' ANDREW MICHAEL HURLEYShe was a woman, and for no reason in heaven or earth she loved him. He had kissed her, and she was bound to him for ever.On a bitter November evening, Mary Yellan crosses the windswept Cornish moors to seek revenge with her Aunt Patience at Jamaica Inn. But the crumbling inn is no safe haven, and Patience is a changed woman, cowering before her domineering husband Joss. In fear of her life, and disturbed by her powerful attraction to Joss's younger brother, Mary is soon plunged into a brutal world of smuggling and murder in which she can trust no one - not even herself. 'The author's stunning evocation of her beloved Cornwall is the real star of this book' RUTH WARE

DISCOVER THE DU MAURIER DARK ROMANCE COLLECTION'Du Maurier is mistress of the sleight of hand in fiction . . . brilliantly, marvellously chilling' MAGGIE O'FARRELL'Moody and unnerving' GILLIAN FLYNN'Sinuous and undeniably feral' JULIE MYERSON***'Every day, haunted still by doubt, I ask myself a question which I cannot answer. Was Rachel innocent or guilty?'Philip Ashley has been raised by his cousin Ambrose as heir to his beautiful Cornish estate. But this close-knit world is shattered when Ambrose travels to Florence, where he unexpectedly falls in love and marries - only to die of a strange illness. Before long, his beautiful, mysterious widow arrives in England - and despite himself, Philip is caught in her spell. But is Rachel a victim, a saviour - or a murderess?Du Maurier is a storyteller whose sole aim is to bewitch and beguile' NEW YORK TIMES'Du Maurier has no equal' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

In this, her second novel, (awarded the 1967 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) Angela Carter's brilliant imagination and starting intensity of style explore and extend the nature and boundaries of love.

This was the freedom she wanted, an animal freedom exposed to the emptiness of sky and land and water. As she stepped forward, Ann flipped into the water and was gone.Evelyn Hall, running from her disastrous marriage of sixteen years, arrives in the neon-lit desert heat of 1950s Reno - the only place in America where she can apply for a quick divorce. Arriving at her guesthouse she meets free-spirited Ann Childs, a casino 'change girl' fifteen years her junior. Overwhelmed by both the vast, lonely beauty of the Nevada desert and her magnetic attraction to Ann, Evelyn must gamble all her own certainties and conventions to win a new kind of freedom.Bold, witty and shimmering with desire, this groundbreaking 60s novel is an unforgettable queer classic.INTRODUCED BY JACKIE KAY'An undisputed lesbian classic' SARAH WATERS'Intelligent and utterly believable' JOYCE CAROL OATES 'Brave, bold and brilliant' JACKIE KAY

'Her Imagination was one of the most dazzling this century' MARINA WALKER, INDEPENDENT 'The way to Carter's visionary and lurid world' THE TIMES'The darting, lyrical pen of Angela Carter, mistress of the erotic picaresque' KIRKUS REVIEWS'I know nothing. I am a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper, an unhatched egg. I have not yet become a woman, although I possess a woman's shape. Not a woman, no: both more and less than a real woman. Now I am a being as mythic and monstrous as Mother herself . . . 'New York has become the City of Dreadful Night where dissolute Leilah performs a dance of chaos for Evelyn. But this young Englishman's fate lies in the arid desert, where a many-breasted fertility goddess will wield her scalpel to transform him into the new Eve. The Passion of New Eve is an extraordinary journey into the apocalyptic vision of the author Lorna Sage called 'The boldest of English women writers'.

The third book in the Anne Shirley series. Anne leaves childhood behind as she moves from Green Gables to attend Richmond College. Her new life brings both adventures and tragedy, as well as new friends, including the handsome Roy Gardner. But her childhood friend Gilbert Blythe is also in Redmond, and his feelings for Anne turn from friendship to love...But what does Anne want for her future? This collection of the best in children's literature, curated by Virago, will be coveted by children and adults alike .These are timeless tales with beautiful covers, that will be treasured and shared across the generations. Some titles you will already know; some will be new to you, but there are stories for everyone to love, whatever your age. Our list includes Nina Bawden (Carrie's War, The Peppermint Pig), Rumer Godden (The Dark Horse, An Episode of Sparrows), Joan Aiken (The Serial Garden, The Gift Giving) E. Nesbit (The Psammead Trilogy, The Bastable Trilogy, The Railway Children), Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Little Princess,The Secret Garden) and Susan Coolidge (The What Katy Did Trilogy). Discover Virago Children's Classics.

Her mother's dying request obliges Mary Yellan to make a grim journey across bleak Cornish moorland to Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience and her overbearing husband, Joss Merlyn. With the coachman's warning echoing in her mind and affected by the inn's brooding power, Mary is thwarted in her intention to help her aunt. She finds herself drawn unwillingly into the misdeeds of Joss and his accomplices, and even more disturbing are her feelings for a man she dare not trust ...Jamaica Inn is a dark and gripping gothic tale that will remind readers of two other great classics, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

'One of my favourite novels: a life-enhancing, twentieth-century masterpiece' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON'Rich in humour and worldly insight' INDEPENDENT'A novel that works beautifully on all sorts of levels, capturing the life of a whole community even as it offers us the passions, frustrations and tragedies of individual lives. . . I can't say enough good things about this book' SARAH WATERS***We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands.Sarah Burton returns to South Riding as a fiery young headmistress, determined to make a difference for the girls in her care - like bright Lydia Holly, who dreams of a scholarship to escape her family's grinding poverty. But she finds a community teetering on the brink of change, torn between established traditions and new idealism.She must work with - and against - her new neighbours to fight her cause: Jo Astell, a socialist fighting poverty and his own tuberculosis; Mrs Beddows, the first woman Alderman of the district; the obsequious businessman Snaith; and brooding Robert Carne, a conservative landowner tormented by his disastrous marriage, to whom Sarah finds herself unwillingly drawn.Winifred Holtby's greatest work is a panoramic evocation of a Yorkshire community between the wars: a rich and moving tapestry of lives, loves, sorrows and triumphs.This beautiful 90th anniversary edition contains a preface by Shirley Williams, an introduction by Marion Shaw and an epitaph by Vera Brittain.

40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, WITH A FOREWORD BY STANLEY TUCCI'I have bought more copies of this book to give to people, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, than any other . . . Heartburn is the perfect, bittersweet, sobbingly funny, all-too-true confessional novel' NIGELLA LAWSON'I kept a copy of Nora Ephron's Heartburn next to me as a reminder of how to be funny and truthful, and all I ended up doing was ignoring my writing and rereading Heartburn' AMY POEHLERSeven months into her pregnancy, Rachel discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. The fact that this woman has a 'neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb' is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel is a cookery writer, and between trying to win Mark back and wishing him dead, she offers us some of her favourite recipes. Heartburn is a roller coaster of love, betrayal, loss and most satisfyingly revenge.This is Nora Ephron's (screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle) roman a clef: 'I always thought during the pain of the marriage that one day it would make a funny book,' she once said. And it is!'It is snortingly funny in its depiction of the death throes of a relationship. And it bursts with recipes. What more could you ask for?' ADAM KAYPART OF THE VIRAGO DESIGNER COLLECTION. COVER FEATURES TEXTILE DESIGN BY ELZA SUNDERLAND

NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily Collins. 'The moment I finished this story, I turned to page one and started it over again' MALORIE BLACKMAN'Excellent entertainment . . . du Maurier created a scale by which modern women can measure their feelings' STEPHEN KING'Rebecca is a masterpiece in which du Maurier pulls off several spectacular high-wire acts that many great writers wouldn't attempt' JIM CRACE, GUARDIAN On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the other woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.This beautiful cover design on this deluxe edition is by textile designer Neisha Crosland.'As a new generation of readers are introduced to the wicked housekeeper Mrs Danvers and learn Maxim de Winter's terrible secret, this chilling, suspenseful tale is as fresh and readable as it was when it was first written' DAILY TELEGRAPH

The eighth book in the Anne Shirley series. Anne Shirley's children are almost all grown up - except for pretty, high-spirited Rilla, who is now almost fifteen years old. No one can resist Rilla's bright hazel eyes and dazzling smile, and Rilla herself can think no further ahead than going to her very first dance at the Four Winds lighthouse - and getting her first kiss from handsome Kenneth Ford! But at the dance, news is brought that England has declared war on Germany. At first, this means little to Rilla, on the threshold of so many new excitements. But as her brothers go off to fight in the Great War and Rilla brings home an orphaned newborn baby in a soup tureen, she is swept into a drama that tests her courage and will leave her changed for ever...A collection will be coveted by children and adults alike, this list is the best in children's literature, curated by Virago. These are timeless tales with beautiful covers, that will be treasured and shared across the generations. Some titles you will already know; some will be new to you, but there are stories for everyone to love, whatever your age.Our list includes Nina Bawden (Carrie's War, The Peppermint Pig), Rumer Godden (The Dark Horse, An Episode of Sparrows), Joan Aiken (The Serial Garden, The Gift Giving) E. Nesbit (The Psammead Trilogy, The Bastable Trilogy, The Railway Children), Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Little Princess,The Secret Garden) and Susan Coolidge (The What Katy Did Trilogy). Discover Virago Children's Classics.

INTRODUCED BY PAUL BINDING'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN 'I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen' PHILIP LARKIN 'No novelist brings more telling observation or more gentle pleasure' JILLY COOPER Dulcie Mainwaring is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten with Dulcie's pretty, young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it might be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life's little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all . . .

'A small masterpiece' Colm Toibin, Daily Telegraph'I don't know how many times I have reread the book, including several times in Catalan, with such effort that speaks volumes to my devotion to the novel' Gabriel Garcia Marquez'The fierce beauty of Rodoreda's writing makes it one of the masterpieces of modern European literature' IndependentFirst published in 1962 as 'La Placa del Diamant', this is considered the most important Catalan novel of all time. This is a new English translation. It has previously been published in English as The Time of the Doves.Barcelona, early 1930s: Natalia, a pretty shop-girl from the working-class quarter of Gracia, is hesitant when a stranger asks her to dance at the fiesta in Diamond Square. But Joe is charming and forceful, and she takes his hand.They marry and soon have two children; for Natalia it is an awakening, both good and bad. When Joe decides to breed pigeons, the birds delight his son and daughter - and infuriate his wife. Then the Spanish Civil War erupts, and lays waste to the city and to their simple existence. Natalia remains in Barcelona, struggling to feed her family, while Joe goes to fight the fascists, and one by one his beloved birds fly away.A highly acclaimed classic that has been translated into more twenty-eight languages, In Diamond Square is the moving, vivid and powerful story of a woman caught up in a convulsive period of history.'An extremely moving love story translated from the Catalan, which reveals much about the Spanish civil war as ordinary, non-political people had to live it' Diana Athill'Go along with Natalia on her night out and you'll soon find you'd follow her anywhere. Rodoreda's writing pays such fierce and tender attention to the experience of being alive, and the tempest that ordinary life can be' Helen Oyeyemi

INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heart-breaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLERCatherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love tangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant.The course of true love or academia never did run smooth.'Her best [novels] are sheer delight, and all of them companionable. Quiet, paradoxical, funny and sad, they have the iron in them of permanence too' JOHN UPDIKE, NEW YORKER'She can be seriously, hilariously funny - no other novelist has celebrated our national silliness with such exuberance' KATE SAUNDERS

A GROUNDBREAKING QUEER CLASSIC AND POWERFUL REIMAGINING OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT THROUGH THE EYES OF HIS LOVER, FOR FANS OF SONG OF ACHILLES AND THE ODYSSEY 'One of the greatest historical novels ever written' SARAH WATERS'I love to find queer representation in historical fiction . . . Renault's eye for intimacy is amazing' DOUGLAS STUART'Fierce, complex and eloquent' MADELINE MILLER'Mary Renault is a shining light' HILARY MANTELI thought, There goes my lord, whom I was born to follow. I have found a king.And, I said to myself, looking after him as he walked away, I will have him, if I die for it.Bagoas, abducted as a boy and sold as a eunuch, has been transported to the heart of the Persian court as courtesan to King Darius. But when the Macedon army conquers his homeland, Bagoas finds freedom at the hands of their golden young commander, whose name is already becoming a legend: Alexander. Their encounter sparks a passionate devotion that shapes the Persian boy's future - and deepens into a relationship that will sustain them both through assassination plots, political intrigue and the threat of Alexander's own restless ambition. This is a spellbinding tale of power, loyalty and loss - a vision of history transfigured by love.'Nowhere else in fiction have Alexander's beauty and charisma blazed with such potency' TOM HOLLAND'Passionate and captivating' SEÁN HEWITT'All my sense of the ancient world - its value, its style, the scent of its wars and passions - comes from Mary Renault' EMMA DONOGHUE'The Alexander Trilogy stands as one of the most important works of fiction in the twentieth century' ANTONIA SENIOR, THE TIMES

FROM A BESTSELLING AUTHOR With a new introduction by TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage'The prose is clear, the plot is page-turning, the characters are utterly believable' CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'The first book by a black woman to sell more than a million copies' NEW YORK TIMES'My favourite type of novel, literary with an astonishing plot' TAYARI JONESNew York City, 1940s. In a crumbling tenement in Harlem, Lutie Johnson is determined to build a new life for herself and her eight-year-old boy, Bub - a life that she can be proud of. Having left her unreliable husband, Lutie believes that with hard work and resolve, she can begin again; she has faith in the American dream. But in her struggle to earn money and raise her son amid the violence, poverty and racial dissonance of her surroundings, Lutie is soon trapped: she is a woman alone, 'too good-looking to be decent', with predators at every turn.

Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese's hit Netflix series, Pretend It's a City.'The gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour. Now and forever' DAVID SEDARIS'She's inexhaustible - her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humour' MARTIN SCORSESE'The rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny' HADLEY FREEMANLebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life - from children ('rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money') to landlords ('it is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches'). And her attitude to work is the perfect antidote to our exhausting culture of self-betterment ('3.40pm. I consider getting out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vigorous. I read and smoke a bit more').The Fran Lebowitz Reader was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-06-22

'The tone is one of intellectual relish . . . rational . . . refined . . . witty' NEW STATESMAN 'Her work is funny, sexy, frightening and brutal' EDMUND GORDON, GUARDIAN 'Angela Carter liked to blur boundaries and break rules' GABY WOOD, INDEPENDENT 'Sexuality is power' - so says the Marquis de Sade, philosopher and pornographer extraordinaire. His virtuous Justine keeps to the rules laid down by men, her reward rape and humiliation; his Juliette, Justine's triumphantly monstrous antithesis, viciously exploits her sexuality. In a world where all tenderness is false, all beds are minefields.But now Sade has met his match. With invention and genius, Angela Carter takes on these outrageous figments of his extreme imagination, and transforms them into symbols of our time - the Hollywood sex goddesses, mothers and daughters, pornography, even the sacred shrines of sex and marriage lie devastatingly exposed before our eyes. Angela Carter delves into the viscera of our distorted sexuality and reveals a dazzling vision of love which admits neither of conqueror nor of conquered.

ANNE LISTER IS THE INSPIRATION FOR GENTLEMAN JACK, THE ACCLAIMED BBC/HBO SERIES BY SALLY WAINWRIGHT, STARRING SURANNE JONES. 'The Lister diaries are the Dead Sea Scrolls of lesbian history; they changed everything. By resurrecting them and editing them with such loving attention and intelligence, Helena Whitbread has earned the gratitude of a whole generation' EMMA DONOGHUE'Engaging, revealing, at times simply astonishing: Anne Lister's diaries are an indispensable read' SARAH WATERSWhen Helena Whitbread first published excerpts from Anne Lister's diary, which was written in a complicated, esoteric code, it was hailed as a lost piece of lesbian history. Whitbread has devoted years to researching and transcribing Lister's extensive journals; the 'crypthand' had allowed Lister to record her life in intimate, and at times, explicit, detail. It was the first time her story had been told.This second volume continues the story of one of the most remarkable women of her time: landowner, industrialist, traveller and lesbian. Anne Lister arrives in post-revolutionary Paris in 1824, attempting to recover from a doomed love affair with a married woman. There she becomes emotionally entangled with a young widow. Anne's efforts, firstly to extricate herself from this new 'scrape' and then to make a choice between the two women in her life, provides an absorbing sexual and social drama.We follow Anne Lister to Buxton, Derbyshire, where a husband appears in hot pursuit of his straying wife who has, in turn, followed Anne there; in Halifax, the Yorkshire town of Anne's birth; to London; and to post-revolutionary Paris, a city alive with political intrigue. Anne's descriptive powers bring each scene vividly to life, providing a brilliant, kaleidoscopic background to her story.

Injured at Dunkirk, Laurie Odell, a young corporal, is recovering at a rural veterans' hospital. There he meets Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly, and the men find solace in their covert friendship. Then Ralph Lanyon appears, a mentor from Laurie's schooldays. Through him, Laurie is drawn into a tight-knit circle of gay men for whom liaisons are fleeting and he is forced to choose between the ideals of a perfect friendship and the pleasures of experience. First published in 1953, The Charioteer is a a tender, intelligent coming-of-age novel and a bold, unapologetic portrayal of homosexuality that stands with Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room as a landmark work in gay literature.

INTRODUCED BY MAVIS CHEEK'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman'She is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' Anne TylerTogether yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year. Belinda, meanwhile, has harboured sober feelings of devotion towards Archdeacon Hoccleve for thirty years.Then into their quiet, comfortable lives comes a famous librarian, Nathaniel Mold, and a bishop from Africa, Theodore Grote - who each takes to calling on the sisters for rather more unsettling reasons.'Some Tame Gazelle is my personal favourite for its sparkling high comedy and its treasury of characters . . . [Pym] makes me smile, laugh out loud, consider my own foibles and fantasies, and, above all, suffer real regret when I reach the final page. Of how many authors can you honestly say that?' MAVIS CHEEK

By the author of Black Narcissus and The River'A masterpiece of construction and utterly realistically convincing' JACQUELINE WILSON'Godden's rich understanding of human nature, her humor and her beautiful prose inevitably leave one aglow' CHICAGO TRIBUNE 'Godden here tries her deft writing hand at landscaping a child's heart' TIME***Someone has been digging up the private garden in the Square. Miss Angela Chesney of the Garden Committee is sure that a gang of local boys is to blame, but her sister, Olivia, isn't so sure. She wonders why the neighbourhood children - 'sparrows' she calls them - have to be locked out: don't they have a right to enjoy the garden too?Nobody has any idea what sends Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of 'good garden earth'. Still less do they imagine where their investigation will lead them - to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and, at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.'Only Rumer Godden could make a simple tale of a forbidden garden pulse with suspense' NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE BOOK REVIEW

BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAININTRODUCED BY DENISE MINA'Highsmith probes to the very core of her heroine with a controlled ferocity and single-mindedness that illuminates every page of her novel' THE TIMES 'A work of extraordinary force and feeling . . . her strongest, her most imaginative' NEW YORKER 'One of the mere twenty or so that I would say were perfect, unimprovable masterpieces' A. N Wilson, DAILY TELEGRAPH Edith Howland's diary is her most precious possession, and as she is moving house she is making sure it's safe. A suburban housewife in fifties America, she is moving to Brunswick with her husband Brett and her beloved son, Cliffie, to start a new life for them all. She is optimistic, but most of all she has high hopes for her new venture with Brett, a local newspaper, the Brunswick Corner Bugle.As Edith Howland's life becomes harsh, her diary entries only become brighter and brighter. Life seems full of promise, and indeed, to read her diary, filled with her most intimate feelings and revelations, you would never think otherwise. Strange, then, that reality is so dangerously different . . .

Alexander's beauty, strength and defiance were apparent from birth, but his boyhood honed those gifts into the makings of a king. His mother, Olympias, and his father, King Philip of Macedon, fought each other for their son's loyalty, teaching Alexander politics and vengeance from the cradle. His love for the youth Hephaistion taught him trust, while Aristotle's tutoring provoked his mind and Homer's Iliad fuelled his aspirations. Killing his first man in battle at the age of twelve, he became regent at sixteen and commander of Macedon's cavalry at eighteen, so that by the time his father was murdered, Alexander's skills had grown to match his fiery ambition.