Most Popular Books by Angela Carter

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

''Sexuality is power'' - so says the Marquis de Sade, philosopher and pornographer extraordinaire. His virtuous Justine keeps to the rules laid down by men, her reward rape and humiliation; his Juliette, Justine''s triumphantly monstrous antithesis, viciously exploits her sexuality. In a world where all tenderness is false, all beds are minefields. But now Sade has met his match. With invention and genius, Angela Carter takes on these outrageous figments of his extreme imagination, and transforms them into symbols of our time - the Hollywood sex goddesses, mothers and daughters, pornography, even the sacred shrines of sex and marriage lie devastatingly exposed before our eyes. Angela Carter delves into the viscera of our distorted sexuality and reveals a dazzling vision of love which admits neither of conqueror nor of conquered.

"With surgical precision it charts the destructive emotional war between a young woman, her husband and his disruptive brother as they move through a labyrinth of betrayal, alienation and lost connections." --

Gente extraordinaria y variada habita esta coleccion de cuentos. Algunos son gente real: Jeanne Duval, la musa desganada de Baudelaire que nunca pidio que la llamaran la Venus Negra, atrapada en el hastio terminal de la pasion del poeta... Edgar Allan Poe, con cara de actor tragico, que demuestra en todo lo que hace y piensa cuanta razon tienen sus amigos cuando dicen que "El hombre que bebe antes del desayuno no tiene remedio..". Y Lizzie Borden, tendida en cama en una calida noche de verano sonando con un parricidio... Otros personajes son completamente imaginarios, como la prostituta del siglo diecisiete que a pesar de si misma se transforma entre los indios en una buena mujer, o la nina, criada por lobos, indiferente y extrana, que no tolera la compania de los seres humanos. El "prodigioso nino de las sartenes" es un infante cocinero que aprende frances en libros de cocina, y en la obertura y musica incidental para El Sueno de una Noche de Verano examina la ambigua naturaleza del principe que ha provocado tantos problemas entre Oberon y Titania.

In the pursuit of magnificence, nothing is sacred,'' says Angela Carter, and magnificence is indeed her own achievement. One of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation, her work as a journalist and critic was no less original. Long autobiographical pieces on her life in South Yorkshire and South London are followed by highly individual inspections of ''abroad''. Some of her most brilliant writing is devoted to Japan - exotically and erotically described here - so perfectly suited to the Carter pen. Domestically, Angela Carter used her mordant wit and accurate eye to inspect England and Englishness as it manifested itself throughout the land. Then she turns to her own craft, and her extraordinarily wide-ranging book reviews are masterpieces.

An omnibus of works by the great British writer that showcases her hauntingly erotic fabulism and the subversive richness of her imagination. In The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter''s famous collection of deeply unsettling stories inspired by fairy tales, we see a Beauty who turns into a Beast, Little Red Riding Hood''s grandmother stoned as a werewolf, and Bluebeard as a murderous, porn-addicted businessman. In the surreally delightful novel Wise Children, an elderly woman recounts the colorful life she and her identical twin sister led as vaudeville performers. And the early story collection Fireworks reveals Carter taking her first forays into the fantastical writing that was to become her unforgettable legacy. As critic Laura Miller has argued, "Most contemporary literary fiction with a touch of magic owes something to Angela Carter''s trailblazing." This Everyman''s Library omnibus gathers the best of Angela Carter in one astonishing volume.

Five stories of desire and discovery set in 1970s Japan, from weird fiction''s most influential pioneer - Angela Carter An Englishwoman muses on her affair with a younger Japanese man. A spurned lover seeks intimacy in another chance encounter. A boy stumbles upon a mirror world while walking in the woods. In five mesmerising, fantastical tales of 1970s Japan, Angela Carter explores what it means to arrive in a world different from one’s own, and to transform profoundly – sometimes terrifyingly – in the process. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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.

Graffiti Gerbil felt dreadful. He had eaten too much, and now his poor tummy was swollen and painful. He felt so bad he knew he would have to go into hospital. He was very afraid. Beryl Badger promised to go with him. She knew that the doctors and nurses were kind and friendly, and would do what they could to make him better.

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.

Across a mysterious landscape. . . of ruin and wilderness the Professors are all that remain of human order in the world. Here crops are cultivated, books are still read, children are schooled. But outside the walls of their fortress villages, beasts roam and the land is peopled by savage, strangely costumed barvarians who raid and plunder. Marianne belonged to the people of civilization and reason -- but they young barbarian Jewel has taken her for his own, into a world of animal virility and savage splendor of heroes and villians.

Carter''s heady first novel introduces one of her most enigmatic characters. Honeybuzzard spends his nights scavenging the contents of abandoned buildings and his days seducing and tormenting lovers, enemies, and friends. He and his best friend Morris scoour the backstreets of London, leaving behind a trail of detruction in the broken hearts and dashed hopes of those they love, manipulate, and ultimately discard.