Virago modern classic ;

Fiction. Thriller.

The Irish sister Elizabeth and Maria Gunning were poor - but outstandingly beautiful. When they were invited to the Lord Lieutenant's ball their glittering gowns were borrowed from the Dublin Theatre wardrobe. But their entry into society was assured. Soon, in true fairy story fashion, they each married a fairy prince: Elizabeth becoming the Duchess of Hamilton and Maria the Countess of Coventry. But although they became the centre of admiration and envy at the Court, they faced appalling difficulties, Elizabeth married for love, but the Duke, though he adored his bride, was an alcoholic and a spendthrift. Maria married for ambition and only later found the love which was to become her whole life.

Pre-war London, and the idea of growing up looms large in the lives of the Carne sisters. Deirdre, Katrine and young Sheil still cannot resist making up stories as they have done since childhood; from their talking nursery toys to their fulsomely imagined friendship with real high-court Judge Toddington. But when Deirdre meets the judge's real-life wife at a charity bazaar the sisters are forced to confront the subject of their imaginings. Will they cast off the fantasies of childhood forever?

MIddle-aged spinster Miss Mole is engaged by a pompous clergyman as governess for his two motherless daughters and tackles the job with shrewdness, wit, and love.

Gamel Woolsey's startling novel about a woman's emotional and physical needs has for more than fifty years remained only in proof form. Intended for publication in 1932 it was withdrawn after the successful prosecution of The Well of Loneliness because of its sexual explicitness. At once graceful and naive, it follows the progress of Mariana Clare whose childhood reading of fairy tales convinces her that eternal love should not be reserved for immortals. Alone in New York at twenty-one, she is surprised by her bohemian friends' openness about sex, for it denies her own dreams about love's perfection. So too does the experience of marriage to Alan, but when they part she is still left with 'a curious fear that if she were not to find a lover she would be lonely in another world as well as in this.'