Phyllis Eleanor Bentley

A small cat reminisces about events that took place around the manger where it was sleeping on the night the baby Jesus was born.

Laura Fairchild enters a charmed world when eccentric patriarch Owen Salinger takes her in as his protege and confidante. In the patrician circles of Boston's Beacon Hill, she acquires grace, culture - and a passionate lover in Owen's nephew, Paul. But Owen's death shatters her dreams. Favored in his will, she now faces the wrath of his family, who close ranks against her. Disinherited, Laura vows to recapture all that has been ruthlessly taken away. With brilliance and flair she builds a hotel empire. Yet beneath her successful facade lives the outcast girl, longing for the home and family she has lost. as long-buried secrets rise like threatening clouds, Laura has to fight to regain her love, her family, and to claim her true inheritance!

A boy of nineteenth century England becomes involved with tradesmen whose aim is to stop the installment of textile machinery.

Lost on the moors after he rescues an injured dog, a fourteen-year-old youth meets a boy who becomes his friend and two men whose illicit trade, forging and clipping coins, involves him and his dog in a dangerous search and a murder in eighteenth-century England.

"Foley and Moss are partners in a successful small business, making plaster pixies for the tourist trade. Foley is the artistic member of the partnership; he thinks up the ideas and designs and has pretensions to even greater artistry in his cherub lamps and fixtures. Moss, the seemingly quiet one who supplied the capital for the venture, manufactures them. Barry Unsworth sets his scene magnificently - a Cornish village, Lanruan, thriving on specious tourism, and its local characters: Graham, the primitive painter; Bailey, the loud-mouthed Northerner who comes to Lanruan to make his fortune; Barbara, the nearest thing the village possesses to a bad girl; and above all Gwendoline, who inadvertently begins the rift in the partnership between Foley and Moss."--BOOK JACKET.

RONNIE CORBETT: Introduction P.G. WODEHOUSE: 'The Voice from the Past' RING LARDNER: Mr and Mrs Fix-It H.F. ELLIS: Lent Term 1939 The Man Faggott (from The Papers of A.J. Wentworth, BA) FREDERIC RAPHAEL: Chinatown MARK TWAIN: A Restless Night KEITH WATERHOUSE: A Family Breakfast (from Billy Liar) BARRY PAIN: The Insult ANONYMOUS: The Simple Story of G. Washington PAUL THEROUX: Algebra NATHANIEL GUBBINS: Gubbins Goes to War JAMES HERRIOT: Tristan's Romance (from Vet in a Spin) BRET HARTE: A Jersey Centenarian A.C. GAMES: Russell's Fantasy ROBERT J. BURDETTE: First-class Snake Stories BOB LARBEY: New Jobs for Old (from A Fine Romance) OSCAR WILDE: The Canterville Ghost RING LARDNER: A Day with Conrad Green SEAN O'FAOLAIN: The Woman Who Married Clark Gable JEROME K. JEROME: I Become an Actor DAVID NOBBS: Chlistmas (from The Better World of Reginald Perrin) BARRY PAIN: The Unsuccessful Sinner GIOVANNI GUARESCHI: Crime and Punishment (from The Little World of Don Camillo) JAMES HERRIOT: The Butcher (from Vets Might Fly) DOROTHY PARKER: You Were Perfectly Fine ARNOLD BENNETT: Raising a Wigwam (from The Card) W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM: The Facts Of Life STEPHEN LEACOCK: Mr Plumter, BA, Revisits the Old Shop (from Happy Stories) ROB BUCKMAN: Jogging from Memory (from Jogging from Memory) ALASDAIR GREY: The Problem (from Unlikely Stories, Mostly) JOYCE GRENFELL: Canteen in Wartime (from Turn Back the Clock) ART BUCHWALD: Coward in the Congo (from I Chose Caviar) SAKI: The Story-teller JOHN VERNEY: Tea at the Embassy (from Verney Abroad) HARRY SECOMBE: Goon Away — Try Next Door (from Goon for Lunch) JOHN WYNDHAM: Pawley's Peepholes (from The Seeds of Time) JEAN DAVIS: Trees and Tribulations GROUCHO MARX: A Blind Date Can Be a Pig in a Poke Bonnet (from Memoirs of a Mangy Lover) DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND: The Gentleman at Home (from The English Gentleman) P.G. WODEHOUSE: 'The Great Sermon Handicap' (from The Inimitable Jeeves) GEORGE & WEEDON GROSSMITH: Diary of a Nobody (from Diary of a Nobody) ART BUCHWALD: My Favourite Tourists (from I Chose Caviar) IRIS MURDOCH: The sale of the Artemis (from The Flight from the Enchanter) ARTHUR MARSHALL: Take A Pew (from I'll Let You Know) JAMES THURBER: The Day the Dam Broke (from My Life and Hard Times) C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON: Nonorigination (from In-laws and Outlaws) DOUGLAS ADAMS: April Showers (from So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) JAMES THURBER: A Sequence of Servants (from My Life and Hard Times) JOHN MOLE: The Monogamist RUDYARD KIPLING: A Friend's Friend FRAN LEBOWITZ: Writing: A Life Sentence (from Metropolitan Life) PETER USTINOV: Schooldays (from Dear Me) PATRICK CAMPBELL: East is West PHYLLIS BENTLEY: At the Crossing (from More Tales of the West Riding) O. HENRY: Memoirs of a Yellow Dog BASIL BOOTHROYD: Coming to Grips (from Let's Move House) A.C. GAMES: The Concerns of Angus Daines ROBERT ROBINSON: The Middle-aged Philistine Abroad (from The Dog Chairman) SUE TOWNSEND: A New School Year (from The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole) GROUCHO MARX: Speed the Parting Guest (from Memoirs of a Mangy Lover) SAKI: The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope NEIL BOYD: One Sinner Who Will Not Repent (from A Father Before Christmas) DOUGLAS SUTHERLAND: The Gentleman and the Opposite Sex (from The English Gentleman) DAMON RUNYON: The Big Umbrella ROBERT ROBINSON: Our Betters (from The Dog Chairman) JOYCE GRENFELL: Antique Shop (from Turn Back the Clock) W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM: The Escape GEORGE S. KAUFMAN: School for Waiters ARTHUR MARSHALL: Cold Comfort Cottage (from I'll Let You Know) MAX APPLE: Carbo-loading (from Free Agents) ROB BUCKMAN: Gray's Anatomy in a Country Churchyard (from Jogging from Memory) BARRY PAIN: The Recitation ART BUCHWALD: Alone in No Man's Lapland (from I Chose Caviar) GERALD DURRELL: The Human Animal (from Encounters with Animals) E.F. BENSON: The Party (from Lucia's Progress) AUBERON WAUGH: Inflammable Nighties (from Consider the Lilies) DAVID NIVEN: 'The Emperor' (from Bring on the Empty Horses) G.K. CHESTERTON: The Singular Speculation of the House Agent (from The Club of Queer Trades) NANCY MITFORD: Castle Life (from Love in a Cold Climate) GEOFFREY WILLANS and RONALD SEARLE: How to Succeed as a New Bug (from How to be Topp) GERALD DURRELL: A Porcupine in the Parish (from Menagerie Manor) E.M. DELAFIELD: Foreign Climes (from The Provincial Lady Goes Further) JOHN VERNEY: Top of the Morning (from Verney Abroad)