Full Description
Love, so the song goes, is a many-splendoured thing. We turn to literature to learn what love is and what it should be, and readers of this collection will find consolation and inspiration in equal measure from some of the sharpest observers of this most essential human emotion. The twenty-eight stories chosen by John Sutherland reflect something of the infinite diversity of English love, with authors as varied as Sylvia Plath and Aphra Behn, Thomas Hardy and V. S. Pritchett, D. H. Lawrence and Adam Mars-Jones. Simple or sophisticated, sometimes comic and often very moving, these stories give a delightful perspective on the mysteries of the English in love.
Contents
Introduction; The Adventure of the Black Lady; The Picture; The Trial of Love; The Heart of John Middleton; Dennis Haggarty's Wife; The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne; To Esther; Enter a Dragoon; Olive's Lover; The Wish House; Miss Winchelsea's Heart; A Long-Ago Affair; Claribel; Episode; Fifty Pounds; The Legacy; Samson and Delilah; The Tunnel; Something Childish but very Natural; Love and Money; Hubert and Minnie; A Love Story; Blind Love; The Blue Film; Stone Boy with Dolphin; An English Unofficial Rose; The Loveliness of the Long-Distance Runner; A Small Spade; Biographical Notes; Acknowledgements