'Family life is Mortimer's subject . . . she picks it apart with precise, swift, sharp strokes.' -- Lucy Scholes, Paris Review First published in 1960, Penelope Mortimer's only collection of short stories lays bare the fury and despair that lurk beneath the surface of everyday domestic life. A mother and her young son arrive at a rental house in rural France only to find themselves locked out; a fractious family of five try and get through a Saturday at home together; a publisher with a pe...

In this extraordinary, semi-autobiographical novel, Penelope Mortimer depicts a married woman's breakdown in 1960s London. With three husbands in her past, one in her present and a numberless army of children, Mrs Mortimer is astonished to find herself collapsing one day in Harrods. This strange, unsettling novel, shot through with black comedy, is a moving account of one woman's realisation that marriage and family life may not, after all, offer all the answers to the problems of living.

Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, a 1958 novel by Penelope Mortimer, is about the expectations of women, about a house-bound mother reluctantly (desperately) at home all day, in contrast to her daughter who has escaped, to university and then, we can assume, to a job.'The book came out at a time,' writes Valerie Grove in the Preface, 'when the impact of the new wave of feminism, which would change everything under the banner of women's liberation, had not yet arrive...

A peakthrough novel of suburban loneliness and subversion—“her style, spare and singular, cuts through the decades like a scalpel” (Rachel Cooke, The Observer)A bourgeois housewife, Ruth Whiting, is “paralysed by triviality,” measuring out her days in coffee mornings, glasses of sherry, and pidge parties—routines that barely disturb the solitude of her existence. Her husband spends his weeknights in town; their daughter, eighteen-year-old Angela, is at Oxf...

This darkly humorous novel of a woman’s inner musings on motherhood, betrayal, dreams—and the unpredictable emotions that surround them—is “so moving, so funny, so desperate, so alive . . . one to be greatly enjoyed” (The New York Times).The “strange, fresh” feminist classic that inspired the 1964 film starring Anne Bancroft (Nick Hornby, author of Funny Girl).The Pumpkin Eater is a surreal black comedy about the ...

The tragic but ultimately uplifting story of a young woman who was sent to a 'baby laundry' for unmarried mothers in 1960s LondonIn 1963, London was on the brink of becoming one of the world's most vibrant cities. Angela Patrick was 19 years old, enjoying her first job working in the City, when her life turned upside down. A brief fling with a charismatic charmer left her pregnant,...

Commemorating 75 years since the Empress of Crime’s first book, the first volume in a set of omnibus editions presenting the complete run of 32 Inspector Alleyn mysteries.A MAN LAY DEADSir Hubert Handesley's extravagant weekend house-parties are deservedly famous for his exciting Murder Game. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse with a real dagger in the back. All seven suspects have skilful alibis – so Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn has to ...

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.Every morning, at the same hour whilst on the golf course, Jack Hartington hears mysterious cries for help. He speaks to a resident of the cottage from which the cries emanate and learns that she has unsettling dreams of a woman with a blue Chinese vase. Believing that the cries for help are from the late Mrs Turner, the former resident of the cottage, Jack hires a psychic investigator to s...

A landmark, eclectic, leviathan-sized anthology of fiction's wilder, stranger, darker shores.The Weird features an all star cast of authors, from classics to international bestsellers to prize winners:Ben OkriGeorge R.R. MartinAngela CarterKelly LinkFranz KafkaChina MiévilleClive Barker

When Angela Marchmont’s motor-car runs off the road in the fog-bound Romney Marsh, she stumbles upon the body of a young woman hidden in a ditch, her face so badly disfigured that identification seems impossible. Who was she? Why was she left in that lonely spot? And why did someone go to such lengths to ensure she would never be recognised? Angela’s search for answers leads her from the eccentric household at Gipsy’s Mile to the great estate of Blakeney Park, and from ther...

Charles Highway, a precociously intelligent and highly sexed teenager, is determined to sleep with an older woman before he turns twenty. Rachel fits the bill perfectly and Charles plans his seduction meticulously, sets the scene with infinite care - but it doesn't come off quite as Charles expects...