"Laura King is a liberated, intelligent and successful woman: successful not only in her career but also with men. Although she has never married, hers has been an active and emotionally fulfilled life. Suddenly, at the age of forty-four, she learns that she is suffering from a rare liver disease and has only a year or two to live. In typically flamboyant style, Laura invites her ex-lovers to dinner. There she announces the unusual part they are to play in her final months. As The Constant Mistress unravels Laura's past, racing against time, Angela Lambert focuses on the relationships between men and women, sisters, parents and friends. Laura's last months concentrate her mind both on the tug between domesticity and freedom, between fidelity and desire, and, above all, on the experience and aftermath of passion. In a novel that is witty and moving, Angela Lambert reveals the dilemmas of the privileged generation of women who came to adulthood after the Pill but before Aids. 'A compulsive read...funny, observant and very real' Beryl Bainbridge 'Lambert refuses to shirk the no-go areas of a woman's life and lust, passion and death. The writing is compelling and the reader, w

The Constant Nymph chronicles the complicated relationships within two families, primarily focusing on the character of Lewis Dodd, a charismatic, talented composer, and Tessa Sanger, the teenage daughter of his mentor, whose passionate love defies societal norms. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Swiss Alps and the bustling city of London, the narrative follows the lives of both the Dodd family and members of the Sanger household. The story takes a harrowing turn when the deaths of key figures destabilize the fragile equilibrium within each family. Central to the novel is the unquenchable love that Tessa Sanger harbors for Lewis. She is a vibrant and fervent young woman deeply enamored with him, despite the insurmountable barriers posed by their age difference and Lewis's marriage to her cousin. Despite these obstacles, Tessa's love for Lewis persists, and her emotions drive much of the story's tension and conflict. The Constant Nymph explores themes of love, obsession, artistic pursuit, and sacrifice, and delves into the enigma of human emotions and the complexities of unfulfilled desire. The novel has garnered praised for its vivid characters and emotional depth and has inspired various adaptations across different media over the years, including a 1943 film adaptation starring Charles Boyer and Joan Fontaine, whose performance as Tess earned her an Academy Award nomination. This Warbler Classics edition includes a biographical timeline.

A fictional portrait of Henry VIII's first wife, Katherine of Aragon, follows her through her youthful marriage to Henry's older brother, Arthur, her widowhood, her marriage to Henry, and the divorce that led to Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn.

Book One of the Constant Love SeriesAs Britain settles into a short-lived peace, the characters of Pride and Prejudice pick up very nearly where the novel left off, in a new series of stories focused on love and family:Elizabeth Bennet finds the joy of her marriage and honeymoon are followed by the demands of becoming Mrs. Darcy, all while helping her shy new younger sister come out into society. Georgiana Darcy must deal with more suitors than she expected, when she fears nothing more than once again being persuaded to think she is in love with the wrong man.

J. Christopher Herold vigorously tells the story of the fierce Madame de Stael, revealing her courageous opposition to Napoleon, her whirlwind affairs with the great intellectuals of her day, and her idealistic rebellion against all that was cynical, tyrannical, and passionless. Germaine de Stael's father was Jacques Necker, the finance minister to Louis XVI, and her mother ran an influential literary-political salon in Paris. Always precocious, at nineteen Germaine married the Swedish ambassador to France, Eric Magnus Baron de Stael-Holstein, and in 1785 took over her mother's salon with great success. Germaine and de Stael lived most of their married life apart. She had many brilliant lovers. Talleyrand was the first, Narbonne, the minister of war, another; Benjamin Constant was her most significant and long-lasting one. She published several political and literary essays, including "A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations," which became one of the most important documents of European Romanticism. Her bold philosophical ideas, particularly those in "On Literature," caused feverish commotion in France and were quickly noticed by Napoleon, who saw her salon as a rallying point for the opposition. He eventually exiled her from France. This winner of the 1959 National Book Award is "excellent ... detailed, full of color, movement, great names, and lively incident" -- The New York Times "Mr. Herold's full-bodied biography is clear-eyed, intelligent, and written with abundant wit and zest." -- The Atlantic Monthly

Though her work is a staple of anthologies of American poetry, Anne Bradstreet has never before been the subject of an accessible, full-scale biography for a general audience. Anne Bradstreet is known for her poem, To My Dear and Loving Husband, among others, and through John Berryman's Homage to Mistress Bradstreet. With her first collection, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, she became the first published poet, male or female, of the New World. Many New England towns were founded and settled by Anne Bradstreet's family or their close associates -- characters who appear in these pages.

Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London. But when her debilitating tuberculosis means exile, she and her devoted lady's maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes, with a mixture of wonder and trepidation, the odd ménage marshalled by the resourceful Omar, which travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. As Lady Duff Gordon undoes her stays and takes to native dress, throwing herself into weekly salons; language lessons; excursions to the tombs; Sally too adapts to a new world, affording her heady and heartfelt freedoms never known before. But freedom is a luxury that a maid can ill-afford, and when Sally grasps more than her status entitles her to, she is brutally reminded that she is mistress of nothing.