Handheld Press (66 results)

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Tatting was Faith Compton Mackenzie's last novel, and revisits the early years of her marriage living in the parish of an eccentric High Church Anglican vicar in Cornwall, beset by formidable women.Mandolinata was Faith's first book, a collection of fourteen short stories set in Capri, Rome and London, all written in the 1920s, about sex, love and bad marriages. This volume bookends the lost works of this neglected British writer.Tatting is a handicraft that uses thread to weave intricate patterns in knotwork. This idiosyncratic novel from 1957 by Faith Compton Mackenzie traces patterns across the Cornish landscape in the style of David Garnett and Sylvia Townsend Warner.A mandolinata is played on mandolins: complex, melancholy and lyrical. This collection of fourteen short stories was Faith Compton Mackenzie's first book from 1931, about sex, love and bad marriages.Tatting is set in 1909. Ariadne is a starving Irish artist in St John's Wood, existing on her memories of having once worked with Beardsley and Wilde. Laura has recently married Guy Mallory, a poet whom she had met only weeks before. They travel to Cornwall on the invitation of an old friend, Father St John (based on the eccentric priest the Reverend Sandys Wason) to stay at his vicarage, relieved to not have to pay their London rent for the summer or to have to finally learn to cook. But Cornwall is . odd. There is a large Alsatian called Rex who wants only to roam the fields at night, and a large farmer called Mr Williams who hides in ditches to spy on ladies. Miss Josephine Want, a domineering parishioner, is fuming at the unwanted visitors, and then Guy and Laura invite Ariadne to Cornwall to paint a fresco in the church. The visit of the triumphantly parasitical artist causes havoc all round. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Condition: Good. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Condition: Good. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Condition: Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Vita Sackville-West was infatuated with her. Virginia Woolfhated her. Sir John Reith resented her but couldnt dowithout her skills: she transformed the BBC into a broadcaster for the people. Lady Astor was her close friend,making a way for her into the heart of Britains political,cultural and intellectual aristocracy. Hilda Matheson was oneof the most important women behind the scenes in Britainspublic life between the wars and an influential networker between feminist, media and political powers. She packed more into her short life than most people would even think possible. Every challenge was accepted, and she lived her life to the full.Hilda worked for MI6 in the First World War, then becameLady Astors political secretary, the first woman MP to takeher seat in the House of Commons. Poached by Sir John Reith, Hilda moved to the BBC to become the first Talks Director for the fledgling BBC, but Reith turned against her liberalising energies, and Hilda resigned rather than compromise her principles. Selected to lead a monumental survey of African economics and natural resources Hilda laid the groundwork for the move away from British colonialism. At the beginning of the Second World War she was put incharge of a new propaganda unit to tell Britains story to itsallies and enemies alike through recordings, images andbooks. Having suffered all her life from Graves disease,which afflicted her with the phenomenal energy levels she needed to tackle the huge tasks in her career, Hilda died during a routine operation in 1940, aged 52.The life of Hilda Matheson is told by her first biographerMichael Carney and by BBC producer Kate Murphy. This passionate, loving woman has finally been the given the memorial her energies and achievements deserve. Her letters to Vita Sackville-West and the Astor papers form the heart of her story, revealing her candid and devoted nature. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Condition: Very Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Condition: Very Good. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A powerful and moving novel from 1921, about the lives and choices of modern women, by Canadian author Marjorie Grant. Latchkey ladies live alone or in shared rooms in London at the end of the First World War. They are determined to use their new freedoms and tread a fine line between independence and disaster. Maquita Gilroy is a Government clerk with a lively sense of self-preservation. Anne Carey is drifting between jobs, bored of her fiance, and longing for something to give her life meaning. Then she meets Philip Dampier, a married man whose plays she admires. Petunia Garry, a beautiful teenage chorus girl with no background and dubious morals, is swept up by an idealistic country squire, determined to mould her into what he wants his wife to be. Gertrude Denby, an Admirals daughter and an endlessly patient companion to an irritating employer, is so very tired of living out her life in hired rooms. Fear woke her in the defenceless hour of dawn. She sat up in bed and faced it at last, shivering so that her teeth chattered, but valiant. She was certain that she was going to have a child. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Good. At last she reached the brow of the hill . now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley . Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture. Malcolm Saville's classic novel from 1946 is about eleven-year old Jane's discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle's farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London. This deeply-felt novel was written while Saville was extending his range as a writer, alongside his very successful Lone Pine adventure series, and nature anthologies for children. Inspired by the experiences of Saville's own god-daughter, this marvellous novel is full of the wonder of discovery, as well the happiness of regaining health, making friends, and learning to love the natural world. The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth century English nature writers. The Introduction is written by Hazel Sheeky Bird of the University of Newcastle. The illustrations by Bernard Bowerman have been reproduced from the first edition.…

Paperback. Condition: Good. A novel of the Fall of France and a trans-Atlantic affair.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Following the success of Handheld Press's 2019 best-selling anthology Womens Weird, British Weird is a new anthology of classic Weird short fiction by British writers, first published between the 1890s and the 1930s. Embracing the famous and the undeservedly obscure, this collection - curated by James Machin, author of Palgrave Gothic's Weird Fiction in Britain, 1880-1939 - assembles stories to thrill, entertain, and chill. Featured stories include: 'Man-Size in Marble' by Edith Nesbit (1893) 'No-Man's Land', John Buchan (1900) 'The Willows', by Algernon Blackwood 'The Man Who Went Too Far', by E F Benson (1912) 'N' by Arthur Machen (1934) 'Mappa Mundi' by Mary Butts (1937) The collection also includes Mary Butts' influential essay 'Ghosties and Ghoulies' (1933), on British supernatural writing. Machin's introduction describes the background for these excellent stories in the Weird tradition, and identifies their use of peculiarly British preoccupations in supernatural short fiction. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. …

Paperback. Condition: Good. This new edition of England is My Village, and The World Owes Me A Living by John Llewelyn Rhys (1911-1940) is a stunning rediscovery of this brilliant writer. Had he lived, an obituary noted, he might have become the Kipling of the RAF.

Paperback. Condition: Good. At last she reached the brow of the hill . now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley . Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture. Malcolm Saville's classic novel from 1946 is about eleven-year old Jane's discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle's farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London. This deeply-felt novel was written while Saville was extending his range as a writer, alongside his very successful Lone Pine adventure series, and nature anthologies for children. Inspired by the experiences of Saville's own god-daughter, this marvellous novel is full of the wonder of discovery, as well the happiness of regaining health, making friends, and learning to love the natural world. The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth century English nature writers. The Introduction is written by Hazel Sheeky Bird of the University of Newcastle. The illustrations by Bernard Bowerman have been reproduced from the first edition.…

Paperback. Condition: Good. Zelda Fitzgerald's rapidly-written only novel, Save Me The Waltz (1932) covers the period of her life that her husband F Scott Fitzgerald had been using for years while writing his Tender is the Night (1934). It is now recognised as a classic novel of woman's experience and an authentic record of the Jazz Age.…

Paperback. Condition: Good. A novel of the Fall of France and a trans-Atlantic affair.

Paperback. Condition: Good. This new edition of England is My Village, and The World Owes Me A Living by John Llewelyn Rhys (1911-1940) is a stunning rediscovery of this brilliant writer. Had he lived, an obituary noted, he might have become the Kipling of the RAF.

Condition: Good. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condition: Good. Zelda Fitzgerald's rapidly-written only novel, Save Me The Waltz (1932) covers the period of her life that her husband F Scott Fitzgerald had been using for years while writing his Tender is the Night (1934). It is now recognised as a classic novel of woman's experience and an authentic record of the Jazz Age.…

Condition: Fine. Used book that is in almost brand-new condition. May contain a remainder mark. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Emerging out of the 19401941 London Blitz, the drama of these two short works, a novel and a memoir, comes from the courage and endurance of ordinary people met in the factories, streets and lodging houses of a city under bombardment. Inez Holdens novella Night Shift follows a largely working-class cast of characters for five night shifts in a factory that produces camera parts for war planes. It Was Different At The Time is Holdens account of wartime life from April 1938 to August 1941, drawn from her own diary. This was intended to be a joint project written with her friend George Orwell (he was in the end too busy to contribute), and includes disguised appearances of Orwell and other notable literary figures of the period. The experiences recorded in It Was Different At The Time overlap in period and subject with Night Shift, setting up a vibrant dialogue between the two texts. Inez Holden (1903-1974) was a British writer and literary figure whose social and professional connections embraced most of London's literary and artistic life. She modelled for Augustus John, worked alongside Evelyn Waugh, and had close relationships with George Orwell, Stevie Smith, H G Wells, Cyril Connolly, and Anthony Powell. The introduction and notes are by Kristin Bluemel, exploring how these short prose texts work as multiple stories: of Inez Holden herself, the history of the Blitz, of middlebrow womens writing, of Second World War fiction, and of the world of work. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good+. No Jacket as Issued. British First. Complete number line from 1 to 10; minimal wear; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition; 202 pages.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 'One November evening in 1925, two young women from London arrived at the village of Chaldon, in Dorset. They brought with them two suitcases, a gramophone, and a wooden boxful of records; the bare necessities. Both wore trousers and had Eton-cropped hair. The taller of the two, Mrs Turpin, had come to the country to recover from a recent operation to remove her hymen.' Mrs Turpin was Valentine Ackland, on the run from her recent disastrous marriage. She was soon to meet the love of her life, Sylvia Townsend Warner, already a celebrity for her dashing debut novel Lolly Willowes. They would live in Dorset together in a passionate relationship until Valentine's death in 1969. Valentine was a dedicated poet, deeply involved with Communism during the 1930s, and an environmentalist and peace campaigner. Recently released MI5 files show that she was blacklisted for confidential work during the Second World War, and remained under long-term surveillance. Despite her commitment to Sylvia, Valentine had many affairs with women who fell for her androgynous beauty and her masterful conduct of an amour. She also struggled with alcoholism, but the relationship with Sylvia survived all challenges. Frances Bingham has written the definitive biography of this remarkable cross-dressing woman, poet and activist, recovering an important part of British lesbian history and creating a testament to queerness and gender identity in Valentine's transgressive life. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Condition: Good. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Condition: Good. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Trade Paperback. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. Selected Short Fiction, 1893-1937.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Elinor Mordaunt was the pen name of Evelyn May Clowes (1872-1942), a prolific and popular novelist and short story writer, working in Australia and Britain in the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century. Melissa Edmundson has curated this selection of the best of Mordaunt's supernatural short fiction, which blend the technologies and social attitudes of modernity with the classic supernatural tropes of the ghost, the haunted house, possession, conjuration from the dead and witchcraft. Each story is an original and compelling contribution to the genre, making this selection a marvellous new showcase for women's writing in classic supernatural fiction. Stories include: The Villa, in which a Croatian mansion does things to its unlucky owners. The Country-side, in which a very ordinary infidelity demands the ultimate sacrifice. Hodge (previously published inWomens Weird) in which a teenage brother and sister resurrect a prehistoric man and bring him into their home. Four wallpapers, in which stripping off the wall coverings of a French chateau re-enacts a family tragedy. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This new selection of Algernon Blackwoods essays and short stories is a unique combination of supernatural writing and the authors own reflections on the art of fiction, and the themes and impulses that created these remarkable stories. Blackwood (1869-1951) is one of the great names in Weird writing, and one of the foremost British writers of horror, supernatural and ghost stories. His talent for expressing unknown fears come through strongly in these tales of the Canadian backwoods, Alpine mountaineering and desert loneliness. His deep interest in extending consciousness beyond human faculties produced short stories to lead the reader into wild and remote settings, to face nature at its most awe-inspiring and terrifying, and to sense, if only briefly, the immensity of the unknown forces beyond. Stories include: 'Skeleton Lake, 'The Wolves of God, 'The Glamour of the Snow, 'The Sacrifice, 'The Insanity of Jones, 'The Tarn of Sacrifice, 'By Water and 'Imagination. Essays include: 'Mid the Haunts of the Moose, 'The Winter Alps, 'On Reincarnation and 'The Genesis of Ideas. This selection of Blackwoods writing has been curated with an Introduction by Henry Bartholomew, of the University of Plymouth. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Following the success of Handheld Press's republication of Sylvia Townsend Warner's fantasy collection Kingdoms of Elfin, in October 2018, the remaining four Elfin stories are gathered together with the remarkable forgotten tales of The Cat's Cradle Book (1940). This is the last major fantasy collection by Warner to be republished for a new generation of fantasy enthusiasts and Warner fans. The twenty-three stories in Of Cats and Elfins encompass scholarship (Warner's ground-breaking essay from 1927 on modern Elfinology), black humour, the Gothic, and the bizarrely anthropomorphic cats of The Cat's Cradle Book, which enact Warner's preoccupation with the dark forces at large in Europe in the later 1930s. The Cat's Cradle opens with a story about the talking cats that die of a murrain in a manor based on Warner's own Norfolk home with Valentine Ackland. `The Castle of Carabas' continues the story begun in `Dick Whittington'. `The Magpie Charity' is a political fable satirising institutional charity, `The Phoenix' relates an unfortunate combustion in the bird collection of Lord Strawberry, and `Bluebeard's Daughter' narrates the adventures of Bluebeard's daughter by his third wife, and her propensity for locked doors. Warner mixes fables and myths with storytelling traditions old and new to express her unease with modern society, and its cruelties and injustices. Greer Gilman's Introduction studies the amalgamation of fantasy and political concern that produces Warner's most radical writing. Greer Gilman is the author of Moonwise and Cloud & Ashes, and two critically-acclaimed novellas about the poet Ben Jonson, as well as poetry and criticism. Her fantasy fiction, rooted in British myth and ritual, has won the Tiptree, World Fantasy, and Shirley Jackson Awards. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…

Paperback. Condition: Good. This new anthology of Helen de Guerry Simpson's supernatural fiction selects the best of her unsettling writing, adding some little-known stories to her 1925 collection The Baseless Fabric.