Synopses & Reviews
The first story in this collection, "Les Liasions Dangereuses," appeared in
Punch in 1964, when Drabble was a bright brand-new literary sensation. It is about a self-conscious young man at an intellectual party who accidentally sets a glamorous young woman's hair on fire. Then came stories in
Mademoiselle, the
Saturday Evening Post,
Ms,
Cosmopolitan ...stories of all the women Drabble has written about, and sometimes been, from the 1960s to the beginning of the twenty-first century.
As always, her work is astoundingly perceptive, sharp, and funny. It embraces marriage, affairs, global warming, career success, real estate, genetics, gin-and-tonics, female friendships, mountain climbing, motherhood, and everything else that Drabble has taken an interest in over the past fifty years. This collection is a wonderful development for readers who already know and love her work — its almost like discovering fifteen new novels — but its also a terrific place to start.
Review
"Smooth, reflective prose....Drabble's fans will savor these bite-sized examples of her humane intelligence." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
A collection of the famed UK novelist Margaret Drabble's complete short stories.
Description
Margaret Drabble's novels have illuminated the past fifty years, especially the changing lives of women, like no others. Yet her short fiction has its own unique brilliance. Her penetrating evocations of character and place, her wide-ranging curiosity, her sense of irony — all are on display here, in stories that explore marriage, female friendships, the English tourist abroad, love affairs with houses, peace demonstrations, gin and tonics, cultural TV programs; in stories that are perceptive, sharp, and funny. An introduction by the Spanish academic Jose Fernandez places the stories in the context of her life and her novels. This collection is a wonderful recapitulation of a masterly career.
About the Author
Margaret Drabble is the author of The Sea Lady, The Seven Sisters, The Peppered Moth, and The Needle's Eye, among other novels. For her contributions to contemporary English literature, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2008.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction ix
Note on the Present Edition xxi
Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1
Hassan’s Tower 7
A Voyage to Cythera 23
Faithful Lovers 41
A Pyrrhic Victory 53
Crossing the Alps 63
The Gifts of War 85
A Success Story 103
A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman 115
Homework 141
The Merry Widow 151
The Dower House at Kellynch:
A Somerset Romance 169
The Caves of God 193
Stepping Westward:
A Topographical Tale 207