Angel : A Virago Modern Classic

Author: Taylor, Elizabeth, Mantel, Hilary

Fiction & related items

Published on 6 April 2006 by Little, Brown Book Group (Virago Press Ltd) as part of 'the Virago Modern Classics' series.

INTRODUCED BY HILARY MANTELElizabeth Taylor is finally being recognised as an important British author: an author of great subtlety, great compassion and great depth - Sarah WatersWriting stories that are extravagant and fanciful, fifteen-year old Angel retreats to a world of romance, escaping the drabness of provincial life. She knows she is different, that she is destined to become a feted authoress, owner of great riches and of Paradise House . . .

After reading The Lady Irania, publishers Brace and Gilchrist are certain the novel will be a success, in spite of - perhaps because of - its overblown style. But they are curious as to who could have written such a book - an elderly lady, romanticising behind lace curtains? A mustachioed rogue? They were not expecting it to be the pale, serious teenage girl, sitting before them without a hint of irony in her soul. *'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' Elizabeth Bowen 'No writer has described the English middle classes with more gently devastating accuracy' Rebecca Abrams, Spectator