Elegant, timeless, and riveting: an exciting anthology of short stories by mid-century women writers from Britain and Ireland—many being published in America for the first time

These remarkable short stories from the 1940s and 50s depict women and men caught between the pull of personal desires and profound social change. From a remote peninsula in Cornwall to the drawing rooms of the British Raj, domestic arrangements are rewritten, social customs are revoked and new freedoms are embraced.

Selected and introduced by writer and critic Lucy Scholes, Senior Editor at McNally Editions, this collection places works from renowned women writers alongside recently rediscovered voices.

Contains:

• “The Cut Finger” by Frances Bellerby
• “Summer Night” by Elizabeth Bowen
• “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier
• “The Land Girl” by Diana Gardner
• “Listen to the Magnolias” by Stella Gibbons
• “Shocking Weather, Isn”t It?” by Inez Holden
• “The First Party” by Attia Hosain
• “Three Miles Up” by Elizabeth Jane Howard
• “The Skylight” by Penelope Mortimer
• “The Thames Spread Out” by Elizabeth Taylor
• “Scorched Earth Policy” by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Suffused with tension and longing, the captivating stories collected here from acclaimed as well as lesser-known women writers form a window onto a remarkable era of writing.