Nanda Gray, the daughter of a Catholic convert, is nine when she is sent to the Convent of Five Wounds. Quick-witted, resilient...

A rich and suggestive work which contrasts the middle-aged disillusion of Professor St Peter with his memories of his favourite...

Edith Wharton (1862-1937), the grande dame of American literature, was also a subtle and spirited critic of its...

In the faded coastal village of Newby, everyone looks out for - and in on - each other, and beneath the deceptively sleepy...

Two sisters: Madeleine and Dinah. One husband: Rickie Masters. For many years now, Dinah, exotic and sensual, has conducted a...

Mrs Lippincote's house, with its mahogany furniture and yellowing photographs, stands as a reminder of all the certainties that...

A finely nuanced exploration of responsibility, snobbery and culture clash from one of the twentieth century's finest...

Art, reality and the strange ways the two imitate one another are at the core of Muriel Spark's delightful Loitering with Intent,...

One October evening five London couples gather for a dinner party, enjoying ‘the pheasant (flambe in cognac as it is)’ and...

Frank Wentworth, Perpetual Curate of St Roque’s, has basked in the popularity of Carlingford, beloved in the gracious homes of...

'The iron of the bridge felt hot under my hand. The sun had been upon it all day. Gripping hard with my hands I lifted myself on...

When Sarah Burton returns to her hometown as headmistress she is full of ambition, determined to create a great school and to...

Dedmayne Rectory is quietly decaying, its striped chintz and darkened rooms are a bastion of outmoded Victorian values. Here Mary...

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...

Behind this rather prim title lies the hilarious fictional diary of a disaster-prone lady of the 1930s, and her attempts to keep...

Vivid, bawdy and bitter' (The Times), Pat Barker's first novel shows the women of Union Street, young and old, meeting the harsh...

Stevie's alter ego Pompey is young, in love and working as a secretary for the magnificent Sir Phoebus Ullwater. In between...

The daughter of a Welsh gypsy and a crazy bee-keeper, Hazel Woodus is happiest living in her forest cottage in the remote...

As the effects of the war raging in Europe begins to be felt at home in London, Monica Dickens decides to do her bit and to...

It is wartime in Barsetshire, and so much has changed. Belier's Priory is now a hospital for wounded soldiers, and Sir Harry and...

It is 1945. When peace breaks out at last, familiar wartime routines are interrupted, and the residents of Barsetshire seem as...

It is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for...

The estate is called Windcote, 'its very name a masquerade', and its master, the odious Raoul Meridian, has invited a group of...

Harlan Jane Eagleton is a faith healer, travelling to small towns, converting sceptics, restoring minds and bodies. But before...

An intense, searing novel exploring the damage of racial and sexual violence.

Eva Medina Canada sits in her psychiatric ward,...

Upon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya...

The stories contained here are as American as jazz, and as wise and multifaceted as their writer. Dorothy West's metier is the...

Set on a bucolic Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s, THE WEDDING tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made...

Denham Dobie has been brought up in Andorra by her father, a retired clergyman. On his death, she is snatched from this reclusive...

It is 1946 and the people of France and England are facing the aftermath of the War. Sent by her beautiful, indolent mother to...