A brother and sister, shattered by the horrors of war, find solace in a tender, incestuous 'marriage'. A wife, bored and rancorous, stitches a widow's quilt. An old level-crossing keeper watches over his speechless, disfigured niece. In this magnificent selection of her stories, ranging from 1932 to 1977, Sylvia Townsend Warner casts a compassionate but piercing eye on the oddities of love. There's the joyously farcical story of the mouse and the four-poster bed, the strange fugue of a sad woman and her doppelganger cat, the composer unexpectedly spending an afternoon 'living for others'. And finally, there's the skein of stories reporting on the events of Elfland, precise, witty and strange. Readers who know this author's work will be delighted, while newcomers will find the perfect introduction to a writer of incomparable style and substance.
- ISBN10 1853811599
- ISBN13 9781853811593
- Publish Date 9 April 1996 (first published 27 October 1988)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Virago Press Ltd
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 448
- Language English