Elizabeth Taylor

Fifteen-year-old Angel is confident that she will become a famous author when she writes her first ‘masterpiece’. The publishers agree it will be a success, despite its overblown style. So begins Angel's career as a romantic novelist.

Amy is happy to accept the help of an American novelist, Martha, when tragedy strikes during a holiday in Istanbul. But on their return to England, ungrateful Amy realises that Martha isn’t someone she would normally be friends with.

Elizabeth Taylor, highly acclaimed author of classic novels such as Angel (7535), A Game of Hide and Seek (9172) and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (7548), is also renowned for her powerful, acutely observed stories. Here for the first time, the stories - including some only recently rediscovered - are collected in one volume.

Mrs Palfrey spends her days at the Claremont Hotel where her fellow residents, flawed and eccentric, fight off boredom and the grim reaper. One day Mrs Palfrey encounters a handsome young writer and learns that even the old can fall in love.

Newly orphaned Cassandra Dashwood takes the position of governess to Sophy, precocious daughter of Marion Vanbrugh, an austere widower and owner of Cropthorne Manor.

In a small coastal village where everyone looks out for each other, nothing goes unnoticed for long. A novelist is so absorbed in the world she creates she fails to see that her husband is involved with a neighbour. Their daughter, though, is appalled by her father's treachery.

The lives of a handful of people in a small country town. Spending the holiday with friends, as she has for many years, Camilla finds their private absorptions - Frances with her painting and Liz with her baby - seem to exclude her from the gossipy intimacies of previous summers.

Harriet’s early love for the absent Vesey endures over the years despite marriage to another, and motherhood. Then he reappears in her life, but is it too late for anything to come of it. A sensitive and amusing tale by one of the best English novelists of the 20th century.

Flora believes herself to be ‘the soul of kindness' and most of her friends would concur. It takes her friend Liz to show that the truth is rather different.