Stories for Winter and nights by the fire is a recent publication from British Library from their British Library Women Writers series. I must say that I’m not a huge fan of short stories as I prefer to get stuck into a decent sized novel, but I really enjoyed this compilation, I don’t think there was a duffer in it – for me anyway. A few of the writers were completely new to me.
But some of the writers I regard as old friends, such as Elizabeth Bowen. Her story Ann Lee’s is about two women friends who visit a hat shop where one of them had bought a hat before. There’s too much to choose from and the time passes quickly with no hat decisions made, then a large man enters the shop and he’s obviously not welcomed by Ann Lee. This one had quite an abrupt ending which left me wondering – with a bit of a shiver – what happened in that shop after the women left? I wanted more really, and that’s my problem with short stories.
The other writers are: Edith Wharton, Mary Angela Dickens, Elizabeth Banks, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bibesco, Violet M. MacDonald, Kate Roberts, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Berridge, Frances Bellerby, Elizabeth Taylor and Angela Carter.
I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this book for review by British Library.
Sounds interesting, but I like to know what type of stories they are before I buy a book like this. I am not interested in ghost stories, (apart from Dicken’s Christmas Carol!) which are some people’s idea of a winter story.
Michelle Ann,
I suppose the British Library Women Writers series could be described as domestic. The books and stories are all wriiten by women and about women’s experiences. Depending on when they were written, older ones often feature the servant problem, husbands and family. The word ‘domestic’ can have a pejorative connotation for some though. British Library ghost/spooky/suspense writing would be in their Tales of the Weird series. Now and again I type British Library into the Fife libraries catalogue and often interesting non-fiction books from them pop up too.
I thought it was an excellent collection – I do like short stories anyway, but this was a particularly strong anthology I felt, and some wonderful authors. Lots of new names, too, which I was pleased about!
kaggsysbookishramblings,
I agree and even the four authors that I hadn’t come across before were good, but I suspect that if they did write much more in the way of fiction they will be difficult to get a hold of.