Virago One Pair of Feet Dickens Monica

Since childhood, Claude Wheeler has believed that ‘something splendid’ would restore the faith he had lost in modern life and the personal compromises and materialism that it brings. The calls of the First World War offers escape from his prosperous farm in Nebraska and marriage of convenience and brings the opportunity to fight for a worthy cause. In action in France he discovers the faith and happiness he has yearned, but not without the heavy cost that war inevitably brings. Willa Cather looks back at the pioneering myth and forward to a new kind of modern heroism through One of Ours, a novel championing democracy

Under his railway arch in Loughborough Junction, South London, Robert Sutton is taking leave of a lifetime of hard work. His dry-cleaning shop lies at the heart of a lively community, a fixed point in a changing world. And, as he explains to his successor, young East Londoner Akeel, it is also the resting place for the contents of his customers pockets - and for their secrets and lies • As he helps Akeel to make a new life out of his old one, Robert also hands on all he knows of his world: the dirty dip of the Thames; the parks, rare green oases in a desert of high-rises and decaying mansion blocks; and the varied lives that converge at the junction. Humming with life, packed tight with detail, The Room of Lost Things is a hymn of love to a great and overflowing city, and a profoundly human story that holds us in its grip from the first sentence until the last

It is a summer's day in 1946. The English village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rustling coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall and their daughter Victoria are forced to manage without 'those anonymous caps and aprons who lived out of sight and pulled the strings'. Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see what it would have meant if the war had been lost, and looks to the future with a new hope and optimism • First published in 1947, this subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, charting, too, a gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life

A brilliant novel about the damage caused by relentless 'niceness'. Uncritical, encouraging, 'the soul of kindness', Flora's help is the cruelest hindrance to those who love her most • 'Here I am!' Flora called to Richard as she went downstairs. For a second, Meg felt disloyalty. It occurred to her of a sudden that Flora was always saying that, and that it was in the tone of one giving a lovely present • Elegant, blonde and beautiful, Flora has everything under control: her perfect home, her husband Richard, her friend Meg, adoring Kit, and the writer Patrick • Flora entrances everyone, dangling visions of happiness and success before their spellbound eyes. All are bewitched by this golden tyrant. Except, that is, for the clear-eyed painter, Liz, who can see that Flora's kindness is the sweetest poison of them all

Spending the holiday with friends, as she has for many years, Camilla finds that their private absorptions - Frances with her painting and Liz with her baby - seem to exclude her from the gossipy intimacies of previous summers. Anxious that she will remain encased in her solitary life as a school secretary, and perhaps to spite of her friends, Camilla steps into an unlikely liaison with Richard Elton, a handsome, assured - and dangerous - liar • Elizabeth Taylor's darkest novel is a skillful exploration of the danger we'll go to to avoid loneliness. Taylor is increasingly recognised as one of the best writers of the twentieth century, and this little-known novel displays her range admirably

A gripping novel that explores the shifting sands of moral values - is murder still murder when committed in a lawless place? • Howard Ingham, an American writer, is in Tunisia working on a screenplay, and feeling stranded. No one has written to him since he arrived - neither the film director who he is supposed to be meeting in Tunis, nor his lover in New York. The erratic mail eventually brings news of the director's suicide. For reasons obscure even to himself, Ingham decides to stay and work on a novel, but a series of events - a hushed-up murder and a vanished corpse - lures him inexorably into the deep, ambivalent shadows of the town; into deceit and away from conventional morality. Ultimately, what is in question is not justice or truth, but the state of his oddly quiet conscience

Intelligent and haunting, with echoes of Brief Encounter, this is a love story by one of the best British writers of the 20th century • During summer games of hide and seek Harriet falls in love with Vesey and his elusive, teasing ways. When he goes to Oxford she cherishes his photograph and waits for a letter that never comes • Years pass and Harriet stifles her dreams; with a husband and daughter, she excels at respectability. But then Vesey reappears and her marriage seems to melt away. Harriet is older, it is much too late, but she is still in love with him

Caro, gallant and adventurous, is one of two Australian sisters who have come to post-war England to seek their fortunes. Courted long and hopelessly by young scientist, Ted Tice, she is to find that love brings passion, sorrow, betrayal and finally hope. The milder Grace seeks fulfilment in an apparently happy marriage. But as the decades pass and the characters weave in and out of each other's lives, love, death and two slow-burning secrets wait in ambush for them

An unforgettable picture of love, loss and the keeping up of appearances. Published as part of a beautifully designed series to mark the 40th anniversary of the Virago Modern Classics • In the faded coastal village of Newby, everyone looks out for - and in on - each other, and beneath the deceptively sleepy exterior, passions run high • Beautiful divorcee Tory is painfully involved with her neighbour, Robert, while his wife Beth, Tory's best friend, is consumed by the worlds she creates in her novels, oblivious to the relationship developing next door. Their daughter Prudence is aware, however, and is appalled by the treachery she observes. Mrs Bracey, an invalid whose grasp on life is slipping, forever peers from her window, constantly prodding her daughters for news of the outside world

Дьяволица, сирена, тигрица, девка, фурия….на протяжении веков эти и многие другие слова использовали для того, чтобы унизить и оскорбить нас, приводя нас в ярость, заставляя нашу кровь кипеть. 15 известнейших писательниц современности, авторов бестселлеров и обладательниц литературных премий решили вернуть себе власть над этими словами. В результате получился сборник Furies, куда вошли лучшие феминистские сказки нашего времени • Книга на английском языке • A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers • Dragon. Tygress. She-Devil. Hussy. Siren. Wench. Harridan. Muckraker. Spitfire. Vituperator. Churail. Termagant. Fury. Warrior. Virago • For centuries past, and all across the world, there are words that have defined and decried us

The scene is Naples, against whose ancient and fantastic background the modern action takes place • Among the protagonists is Jenny, young and pretty, who has come to Naples in flight from a sombre drama, unaware that a larger drama waits her there • She has an introduction to a Neapolitan woman, and one day she idly follows it up. This is her leap through the looking glass

Alessandra is not quite fifteen when her prosperous merchant father brings a young painter back with him from Holland to adorn the walls of the new family chapel. She is fascinated by his talents and envious of his abilities and opportunities to paint to the glory of God. Soon her love of art and her lively independence are luring her into closer involvement with all sorts of taboo areas of life. On excursions into the streets of night-time Florence she observes a terrible evil stalking the city and witnesses the rise of the fiery young priest, Savanarola, who has set out to rid the city of vice, richness, even art itself • Alessandra must make crucial decisions about the shape of her adult life, as Florence itself must choose between the old ways of the luxury-loving Medicis and the asceticism of Savanorola