The Edwardians
by Vita Sackville-West | 
No Signposts in the Sea
by Vita Sackville-West | 
The Fountain Overflows
by Rebecca West | 
The Longest Journey
by E. M. Forster | 
A View of the Harbour
by Elizabeth Taylor | 
The Death of the Heart
by Elizabeth Bowen | 
Cakes and Ale
by W. Somerset Maugham | 
Liza's England
by Pat Barker | 
Coming Up for Air
by George Orwell | 
Angel
by Elizabeth Taylor | 
Precious Bane
by Mary Webb | 
The Echoing Grove
by Rosamond Lehmann | 
The Judge
by Rebecca West | 
Union Street
by Pat Barker |
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
by Elizabeth Taylor | 
Still Life
by A. S. Byatt | 
Independent People
by Halldor Laxness | 
The Sot-Weed Factor
by John Barth | 
The Friendly Persuasion
by Jessamyn West | 
The Fortress
by Mesa Selimovic |
In 1860, as a young girl of 17, Lady Slane nurtures a secret, burning ambition--to become an artist. She becomes, instead, the wife of a great statesman and the mother of six children. Seventy years later, released by widowhood, and to the dismay of her pompous children, she abandons the family home for a tiny house in Hampstead. Here she recollects the dreams of youth, and revels in her newfound freedom with her odd assortment of companions: Genoux, her French maid; Mr. Bucktrout, her house agent; and a coffin maker who pictures people dead in order to reveal their true characters. And then there's Mr. FitzGeorge, an eccentric millionaire who met and loved her in India when she was young and very lovely. It is here in this world of her own that she finds a passion that comes only with the freedom to choose, and it is this, her greatest gift, that she passes on to the only one who can understand its value.