Angel: A Virago Modern Classic

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INTRODUCED BY HILARY MANTEL

Elizabeth Taylor is finally being recognised as an important British author: an author of great subtlety, great compassion and great depth - Sarah Waters

Writing stories that are extravagant and fanciful, fifteen-year old Angel retreats to a world of romance, escaping the drabness of provincial life. She knows she is different, that she is destined to become a feted authoress, owner of great riches and of Paradise House . . .

After reading The Lady Irania, publishers Brace and Gilchrist are certain the novel will be a success, in spite of - perhaps because of - its overblown style. But they are curious as to who could have written such a book - an elderly lady, romanticising behind lace curtains A mustachioed rogue

They were not expecting it to be the pale, serious teenage girl, sitting before them without a hint of irony in her soul.

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'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning-point in one's own experience' Elizabeth Bowen

'No writer has described the English middle classes with more gently devastating accuracy' Rebecca Abrams, Spectator

Reviews

'Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Bowen - soul-sisters all' Anne Tyler 'One of the most underrated novelists of the twentieth century' Antonia Fraser 'I envy those readers who are coming to her work for the first time. Theirs will be an unexpected pleasure' Paul Bailey 'Her stories remain with one, indelibly, as though they had been some turning point in one's own experience' Elizabeth Bowen 'Quietly and devatatingly amusing' Hilary Mantel 'An excellent novel' Jonathan Keates, Spectator 'A masterpiece' 'Precious and endearing' 'Angel is a brilliant creation with not a seed of irony, self knowledge or humour in her soul . . . I'm not one who re-reads books but I return to this on frequently and every time it makes me envious - and it makes me laugh and cry. You can't ask for much more from a novel than that' Lesley Glaister, Guardian 'A brilliant exposition of the effects of self-delusion, this novel is as sad on one page as it is funny on the next' Publishers Weekly 'Taylor has an eye as sharply all-seeing as her prose-style is elegant - even the humdrum becomes astonishing' Daily Telegraph

Author Bio

Elizabeth Taylor (1912-1975) was born and educated in Reading. After leaving school she worked as a governess and later in a library. She lived much of her married life in the village of Penn in Buckinghamshire.