A gender-bending satire, as fresh and thought-provoking today as it was on its original publication in 1969.Set in an airport lounge, In Transit follows contemporary traveler Evelyn Hillary O'Rooley who has “lost” his/her gender, prompting him/her to perform a series of unsuccessful, yet bizarrely hilarious, philosophical and anatomical tests to rediscover it. Divided into four symphony sections, Brigid Brophy surrounds this simple plot device with an endl...

A “pointed and amusing satire” (TIME) of animal rights from a trailblazing twentieth-century writer and activist.At the London Zoo, Professor Clement Derrylhyde has been studying Percy and Edwina, a pair of Hackenfeller’s Apes, for some time: serenading them with Mozart, learning their habits, hoping to witness the mating of this endangered species. Percy observes him back through the bars of his enclosure, wary of a species that is both captor and compani...

Is modern man threatening to destroy his world? First published in 1962, this book, which analyzes the origins, history, and manifestations of the destructive impulse that exists in human beings, has relevance and interest for all of us. The author sees this impulse as primarily one of self-destruction deflected outward, and her brilliant exploration of its multiple effects takes her and the reader into regions of complex fascination.In ranging the fields of art, science, and morali...

A quest for love, and a comic jaunt across Europe that’s “sharp, funny and clever, and fresh as new paint” (The Times)When 19-year-old Susan takes a job with Finkelheim, the shady bookseller across the street from her flat in London’s grotty, bohemian Fitzrovia, she has no plan beyond making the rent and treading water till something better comes along. One day, however, leafing through the erotic books that are Finkelheim’s main stock in trade, she stumbl...

When Anna is kissed by a mysterious stranger at a NYE masquerade ball , a dance of seduction begins.'So original and refreshing.' Hilary Mantel'Brilliantly seductive ... A witty, sexy, sophisticated treat.' Sarah Waters'Superb ... Sheer artistic insolence.' Iris Murdoch'A great novel ... A swirling, sumptuous, sensual feast...

An eccentric professor saves a London Zoo ape from a rocket experiment in this dazzling classic by a trailblazing animal rights activist, introduced by Sarah Hall.'Pitch-perfect.' Ali Smith'So original.' Hilary Mantel'Stunning.' Isabel Waidner'There is nobody quite like her.' A.S. Byatt'Her beastly, risky best.' Eley WilliamsWhen my s...

'In the title story of [ The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl] the main character, God himself, expresses a taste for writing that's sophisticated, stylish, literary. The words apply very well to [Brigid] Brophy's own best work.' New Republic'What we have here is more common in England than America: reading that's at once very light and very intellectual. Consistent with her commitment to artifice and the rococo, Brophy believes in play... [She] ...

Nancy meets Marcus at a party. He is untidy, nervous, shy: women have never paid him any attention. But here is virgin clay from which Nancy can mould her Adam. She marries him, and on their wedding night Marcus realises he is as much her protege in sex as in other fields. But soon he is confident that, under her guiding hands, he had been transformed into a consummate lover; and he begins to feel the urge to slip his leash.'Elegant, funny and erotic... a good showcase for [Brophy'...

'[Beardsley's] vision is permanently that of a child lying in bed watching his mother dress for a dinner-party. His fantasy hangs this here, tries the effect of that there: everything is a jewel, and everything is a sexual organ. He is allured, yet afraid to touch: driven back on a cold minuteness of detailed attention, and yet passionately curious, with the emotional and involved curiosity children give to sex.'Brigid Brophy first published her study of 'the most intensel...

Brigid Brophy first published her passionate, profoundly original Mozart the Dramatist in 1964, revisiting it subsequently in 1988. Organised by theme, the text offers brilliant readings of Mozart's five most famous operas - Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte - while a 1988 preface reconsiders Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito. Brophy's analysis is richly...

The tweedy Miss Hetty Braid worships the lovely but selfish Miss Antonia Mount, her co-proprietor at the most exclusive finishing school on the French Riviera. The girls they teach are quite remarkable, though hardly in the sense of academic distinction. But trouble looms when Antonia announces that 'Royalty is coming.' The great day arrives, and though at first things go tolerably well, disaster springs from good intentions.This Faber Finds edition includes a 1987 introduction by ...

When Anna is kissed by a mysterious stranger at a NYE masquerade ball , a dance of seduction begins.'So original and refreshing.' Hilary Mantel'Brilliantly seductive ... A witty, sexy, sophisticated treat.' Sarah Waters'Superb ... Sheer artistic insolence.' Iris Murdoch'A great novel ... A swirling, sumptuous, sensual feast...