Women Writers
British Library Women Writers
The Women Writers series from British Library Publishing brings back and contextualises novels by authors who were successful in their day. Through powerful storytelling, these novels portray issues that women faced during the twentieth century and highlight society’s changing attitudes toward female behaviour through the decades.
Launched in 2020, the series now comprises over 25 titles which encompass satirical musings on ageing, parallel narratives, body swaps, fictionalised depictions of true crime, coming-of-age stories, and reflections on singledom, sex, marriage and infidelity. More recently, anthologies have been successfully introduced, bringing together new collections of short stories by well-known and forgotten authors that span the twentieth century.
This catalogue contains information on the two latest titles released from July to December 2024, together with bibliographic details on previously published titles available to order from British Library Publishing.
Each novel includes a new preface, an author biography, a chronology of the significant events during the decade of the novel’s setting or publication and an afterword discussing the key issues in the story.
Prefaces are written by British Library curators. The Afterwords are written by Series Consultant Simon Thomas, who created the middlebrow fiction blog Stuck in a Book in 2007. The site receives more than 10,000 visitors each month. Simon hosts other bookblogging projects such as A Century of Books. He is also the co-host of the popular podcast Tea or Books? Simon has a PhD from Oxford University in Interwar Literature and lives in Oxfordshire.
http://www.stuckinabook.com @stuck_inabook
The Camomile
Catherine Carswell
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712355070
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Publishing August 2024
Catherine Carswell (1879–1946)
was a Scottish author, biographer and journalist. As a journalist she was once famously fired from the Glasgow Herald for writing a positive review of D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow. Her subsequent correspondence with the author encouraged her to write her first novel Open the Door! (1920), which won the Melrose Prize. The Camomile was first published in 1922.
I have a Room! A room all to myself and away from home!
Set in early twentieth-century Glasgow, this effervescent novel is widely considered a fictional counterpart to Virginia Woolf’s feminist essay ‘A Room of One’s Own’. Desperate to escape her intrusive aunt and explore her creative talents, the vibrant Ellen Carstairs rents a room ten minutes’ walk from home in which to find the peace and solitude to focus on her music and writing. Written as a ‘journal letter’ to her good friend Ruby, Ellen reveals her fluctuating ambitions and dreams as she endeavours to negotiate her place in the world.
Lady Living Alone
Norah Lofts
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712355124
208 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Publishing October 2024
Norah Lofts (1904–1983) published a collection of short stories in 1935 before releasing her first novel a year later. She specialised in historical fiction, writing almost fifty novels in this genre and is best known for them today. But Lofts also published a few mysteries and thrillers under the pseudonym Peter Curtis. One of these was Lady Living Alone, first published in 1945.
Well then, since that has got you nowhere, stop being yourself. Beat your way out. Escape.
Originally published in 1945, what begins as a domestic novel quickly evolves into a dramatic thriller. Penelope Shadow, like her name suggests, has made very little mark on the world, until she purchases a typewriter and becomes a sensation as a romance novelist. She can now afford to buy her own house, and employs a capable and attentive young man as housekeeper. But what are his motives? Is she in danger? As events twist and turn, she must summon up the strength and ingenuity of her characters as the novel moves to a tense denouement.
Stories for Summer
And Days by the Pool
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712355155
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Published June 2024
Cycling to a country pub; dancing outside a village trattoria; attending a garden party with a mysterious date: these are a few of the stories that celebrate the summer months. But as the heat intensifies, jealousies rise and reality fractures: a woman swims across dangerous waters to teach her husband a lesson; a girl is inexplicably drawn to the stillness of a woodland pool. In the bright glare of summer, the truth becomes elusive, motives unclear: loss haunts a beautiful lakeside villa and loneliness confuses a Florentine encounter; a fortune teller is perplexed by what she reads in the cards. And eventually the holiday must end and the boat will pull away to the mainland.
This new anthology brings together the creative minds of:
Katherine Mansfield
Virginia Woolf
Elizabeth Bowen
Sylvia Land
G. B. Stern
Mary Lavin
Phyllis Bottome
Mary Norton
Daphne du Maurier
Elizabeth Taylor
Maeve Brennan
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Muriel Spark
Angela Huth
Stories for Winter
And Nights by the Fire
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354691
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Published October 2023
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 of seasonal tales will sustain you through the long, dark, winter evenings.
This new anthology brings together the creative minds of:
Edith Wharton
Mary Angela Dickens
Elizabeth Banks
Katherine Mansfield
Elizabeth Bibesco
Elizabeth Bowen
Violet M. MacDonald
Kate Roberts
Shirley Jackson
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Elizabeth Berridge
Frances Bellerby
Elizabeth Taylor
Angela Carter
Forest Silver
A Lake District Story
E. M. Ward
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712355803
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Sing Me Who You Are
Elizabeth Berridge
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354875
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Introduction to Sally Elizabeth
von Arnim
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354745
272 pages, 190 x 130 mm
One Year’s Time
Angela Milne
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354578
288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Home
Penelope
Mortimer
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354929
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Stories for Christmas And the Festive Season
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354523
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
War Among Ladies
Eleanor Scott
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354622
288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
A Pin to See the Peepshow
F. Tennyson Jesse
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353595
400 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Keeping Up Appearances
Rose Macaulay
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354011
288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Which Way?
Theodora Benson
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353984
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Strange Journey
Maud Cairnes
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712354950
208 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Love Child
Edith Olivier
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353649
208 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Sally on the Rocks
Winifred Boggs
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353045
288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Mamma
Diana Tutton
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353885
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
O, The Brave Music
Dorothy
Evelyn Smith
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353380
320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tea is So Intoxicating
Mary Essex
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353625
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tension
E. M. Delafield
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353939
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Father
Elizabeth von Arnim
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353182
304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Dangerous Ages
Rose Macaulay
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353878
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
My Husband
Panter-Downes
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353120
224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Chatterton Square
E. H. Young
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353229
368 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Tree of Heaven
May Sinclair
Paperback with flaps £9.99
ISBN 9780712353076
320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Simon
Mollie
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Cover artwork by Sinem Erkas
Specifications, prices and covers in this catalogue are subject to change prior to publication.
Lists of forthcoming Non-fiction and fiction in the British Library Crime Classics, Tales of the Weird and Gilded Nightmares series may be viewed alongside this catalogue and previous editions online at issuu.com/bl_publishing