Angela Carter Knihy

These two collections of little-known stories from Europe, the Arctic, the USA, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, contain tales of alluring women, ailing warriors, enchantresses and seekers of revenge. The heroines are always centre stage, as large as life, or even larger.

Wise Children follows the fortunes of the Chance twins, Dora and Nora, taking in the story of their show business family -- the Hazards -- over the past century. Born illegitimately, spurned by their father Melchior and brought up by their landlady, Mrs Chance, Dora and Nora learn to dance, and begin to forge a career, “two girls pounding the boards”. After the post-war decline of their careers they are reduced to performing in nude revues, while the latest generation of Hazards rise to fame as stars of television. Angela Carter's witty and bawdy new novel celebrates the magic of over a century of show business.

Set in 1899. Through the circus flier F̀evvers', the author mocks cliches of Gothic romance, melodrama, farce, fairytale, and utopian vision.

Her writing is pyrotechnic - fuelled with ideas, packed with images and spangling the night with her starry language' Observer

A collection of short stories full of extraordinary people, some of them real - Jean Duval, Baudelaire's black mistress; Edgar Allan Poe and Lizzie Borden. Other characters flow from a fantastic imagination. The author also wrote "Nights at the Circus", "The Magic Toyshop" and "Shadow Dance".

In The Bloody Chamber - which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan's 1984 movie The Company of Wolves - Carter spins subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like "Little Red Riding Hood," "Bluebeard," "Puss in Boots," and "Beauty and the Beast," giving them exhilarating new life in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition.

Ten little books in a shelf box. Box itself shows a bit of shelf wear but is intact with no tears. The little books are all intact, but some are slightly yellowed with age but are clean and have been well protected.

Paintings and text capture the strange moods of cats and introduce the alphabet.

As well as her eight novels, Angela Carter published four wonderful collections of short stories during her lifetime, and contributed stories to several anthologies. The stories were scattered amongst different publishers, and a couple of the volumes are now out of print. In BURNING YOUR BOATS they are gethered together for the first time; this is a key collection and a major event for Angela Carter aficionados. It brings some important work back into print, including THE BLOODY CHAMBER - her seminal collection of fairytales in which she rewrote stories such as Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast in her characteristically subversive, earthy way. This publication in 1995 will begin a major Angela Carter promotion; a celebration of the publication of her Collected Works, and a major push for the back list, with an order form for all of the Chatto, Vintage and Virago titles. This enticing, fat volume of Carter's surprising and inventive stories will be one of the most exciting events in the promotion.