British Library Women Writers

Though from very different backgrounds, Daphne and Daisy move as one – living in the same apartment, pursuing writing careers and attracted to the same man. Rose Macaulay brings her customary satirical wit to a novel about identity and deceit, drawing on sharp observations of the print press’s attitude to women, and prefiguring the age of social media with our fixation on how we appear to others.

When her bohemian life in Paris falls flat at the beginning of the First World War, Sally Lunton returns to the care of her guardian in Little Crampton to find a husband. With some encouragement from the local busybody, she makes a play for Mr. Bingley, the bank manager, although she has a rival in Mrs. Dalton, a widow with a young daughter to raise. These two ladies form a quiet alliance, recognizing that the prize isn't really worth fighting over but respecting the other's pursuit of financial security. Sally aims to win but is distracted by her unsettling emotions for a soldier tortured by his experience at the Front. This entertaining novel is full of acute and humorous observations of male and female attitudes to love and marriage. Sally is a spirited heroine, who is determined to settle into a comfortable life now that she is in her early thirties. But in securing her future, Sally must also face her past.

Curl up with Stories for Winter, a collection of seasonal tales to sustain you through the long, dark evenings. Originally written and first published in the twentieth century, the fourteen stories in this new anthology bring together the creative minds of Angela Carter, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Berridge, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Taylor, Mary Angela Dickens, Elizabeth Bowen and Kate Roberts. 

A woman waits for her lover across a flooded landscape; another braves a snowstorm for a stranger; while a young girl's unseasonal visit to the seaside ends in a shattering revelation. Exploring themes of loss and loneliness, resilience and renewal, this collection brings together many renowned female writers of the short-story form. In the spirit of the Women Writers series, these stories first appeared in books and periodicals in the twentieth century.

In this body swap comedy from the 1930s, the minds of two strangers, aristocrat Lady Elizabeth and middle-class Polly Wilkinson, switch places with baffling and hilarious results. With wry observations on class, behavior and relationships, as both attempt to navigate the different social settings and awkward situations they suddenly find themselves thrust into - the switches taking place randomly with very little warning - the two women are eventually able to contrive a meeting and learn to control their 'gift' and effect positive changes in each others' lives.
 

'There was no one in the room. Blinds and curtains were closed; the light of the skies, if any, was shut out. … Only the fire was alive, consuming its life-for what? Then the door opened and as Claudia came with hurried steps into the fire's glow, two open letters in her hand, the telephone began ringing. She shut the door and turned up the lights.'

Claudia Heseltine returns to this moment three times in a series of parallel narratives. As the novel presses the re-set button, she accepts each invitation, one by telephone, two by letter, to a specific social event, and in doing so her life goes down a different path with its own possibilities and achievements, sorrows, and disappointments. This is an inventive novel, published in 1931, which contemplates the consequences of a single decision.