Best Selling Books by Angela Carter

In Brixton, Nora and Dora Chance – twin chorus girls born and bred south of the river – are celebrating their 75th birthday. Over the river in Chelsea, their father and greatest actor of his generation Melchior Hazard turns 100 on the same day. As does his twin brother Peregrine. If, in fact, he''s still alive. And if, in truth, Melchior is their real father after all... Wise Children is adapted for the stage from Angela Carter''s last novel about a theatrical family living in South London. It centres around twin chorus girls, Nora and Dora Chance, whose lives are brimming with mystery, illegitimacy and scandal. Dora narrates the story as her older self, looking back on a tumultuous life, throughout which she and her sister have loved to sing and dance. A big, bawdy tangle of theatrical joy and heartbreak, Wise Children is a celebration of show business, family, forgiveness and hope. Expect show girls and Shakespeare, sex and scandal, music, mischief and mistaken identity – and butterflies by the thousand.

Desiderio is a government minister in a otherwise prosperous city. Unfortunately, it is currently under attack by Doctor Hoffman''s reality distorting machines. Desiderio has been tasked with assassinating Dr. Hoffman so as to stop the attack.

For the 75th anniversary of her birth, a Deluxe Edition of the master of the literary supernatural’s most celebrated book—featuring a new introduction by Kelly Link, the author of the national bestseller The Book of Love and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, with flaps and deckle-edged paper Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber—which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan’s 1984 movie The Company of Wolves—she 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. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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.

Desiderio, an employee of the city under a bizarre reality attack from Doctor Hoffman''s mysterious machines, has fallen in love with Albertina, the Doctor''s daughter. But Albertina, a beautiful woman made of glass, seems only to appear to him in his dreams. Meeting on his adventures a host of cannibals, centaurs and acrobats, Desiderio must battle against unreality and the warping of time and space to be with her, as the Doctor reduces Desiderio''s city to a chaotic state of emergency - one ridden with madness, crime and sexual excess. A satirical tale of magic and sex, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is a dazzling quest for truth, love and identity.

Once upon a time fairy tales weren''t meant just for children, and neither is Angela Carter''s Book of Fairy Tales. This stunning collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world- from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters. This fabulous celebration of strong minds, low cunning, black arts and dirty tricks could only have been collected by the unique and much-missed Angela Carter. Illustrated throughout with original woodcuts.

"This story follows Evelyn, a young Englishman, along a journey through mythology and sexuality. It is a story of how he learns to be a woman, first in the brutal hands of Zero, the ragtime Nietzsche, then through the ancient Tristessa, the beautiful ghost of Hollywood past."--

a) The Unicorn As with the night-scented stock, the full splendour of the unicorn manifests itself most potently at twilight. Then the horn sprouts, swells, blooms in all its glory. SEE THE HORN (bend the tab, slit in slot marked ''x'') Despite being one of the most influential - and best-loved - of the post-war English writers, Angela Carter remains little-known as a poet. In Unicorn, the critic and historian Rosemary Hill collects together her published verse from 1963-1971, a period in which Carter began to explore the themes that dominated her later work: magic, the reworking of myths and their darker sides, and the overturning of literary and social conventions. With imagery at times startling in its violence and disconcerting in its presentation of sexuality, Unicorn provides compelling insight into the formation of a remarkable imagination. In the essay that accompanies the poems the critic and historian Rosemary Hill considers them in the context of Carter''s other work and as an aspect of the 1960s, the decade which as Carter put it ''wasn''t like they say in the movies''.

"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." --

The Vintage Collected Edition of Angela Carter''s works continues with THE CURIOUS ROOM, which contains her dramatic writings, including several previously unpublished plays and screenplays. THE CURIOUS ROOM includes a radio play about the demented Victorian painter and parricide Richard Dadd; reworkings of Puss in Boots and the Dracula story; a draft for an opera of Virginia Woolf''s ORLANDO, as well as the film scripts of THE MAGIC TOYSHOP and THE COMPANY OF WOLVES. Revealing many of the enthusiasms and concerns which ignited Carter''s fiction. THE CURIOUS ROOM is full of magnificent and startling new material, charged with the range and power of Carter''s imagination and inventiveness.

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

A selection of writings by Angela Carter.

One of our most imaginative and accomplished writers, Angela Carter left behind a dazzling array of work: essays, citicism, and fiction. But it is in her short stories that her extraordinary talents—as a fabulist, feminist, social critic, and weaver of tales—are most penetratingly evident. This volume presents Carter''s considerable legacy of short fiction gathered from published books, and includes early and previously unpublished stories. From reflections on jazz and Japan, through vigorous refashionings of classic folklore and fairy tales, to stunning snapshots of modern life in all its tawdry glory, we are able to chart the evolution of Carter''s marvelous, magical vision.

In Eighteenth Century France, Charles Perrault Rescued From The Oral Tradition Fairy Tales That Are Known And Loved Even Today By Virtually All Children In The West. Angela Carter Came Across Perrault''S Work And Set Out To Adapt The Stories For Modern Readers Of English. In Breathing New Life Into These Classic Fables, She Produced Versions That Live On As Classics In Their Own Right, Marked As Much By Her Signature Wit, Irony, And Subversiveness As They Are By The Qualities That Have Made Them Universally Appealing For Centuries.

6In this collection of nine short stories, Carter pinpoints the symbolism of city streets and weaves allegories around forests and jungles of strange and erotic landscapes of the imagination.

"An electrifying intellectual autobiography, with all the narrative expanse, drama, outrage, and high comedy of the author’s fiction. Angela Carter is revealed here, anew, as one of the most important thinkers of twentieth-century world literature—and one of its most pungent voices.”—Rick Moody One of contemporary literature’s most original and affecting fiction writers, Angela Carter also wrote brilliant nonfiction. Shaking a Leg comprises the best of her essays and criticism, much of it collected for the first time. Carter’s acute observations are spiked with her piercing matter-of-factness, her devastating wit, her penchant for mockery, and her passion for the absurd. Whether discussing films or food, feminism or fantasy, science fiction or sex, Carter consistently explores new territories and overturns old ideas. No cultural icon escapes her scrutiny; as in her fiction, Carter offers glorious evidence of the transforming power of the imagination. From delightfully wicked commentaries on Gone with the Wind, a Japanese fertility festival, and fellow writers, including Lawrence, Lovecraft, Borges, and Burroughs, to enchanting personal essays, Carter shares her thoughts and herself with glee. “What a wonderful collection—sharp, funny, too decent for sarcasm but great wit and humanity, an unusual combination. But it makes us miss her, miss laughing with her, that real, intelligent, tough writing woman.”—Grace Paley

Short stories inspired by America, written during the last ten years, none of which have appeared in book form before.

Ten beloved fairy tales, given new life by the one and only Angela Carter Little Red Riding Hood. Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. Bluebeard. The Fairies. Many classic fairy tale characters might not have survived into the present were it not for Charles Perrault, a seventeenth-century French civil servant who rescued them from the oral tradition and committed them to paper. Three centuries later, Angela Carter, widely regarded as one of England’s most imaginative writers, adapted them for contemporary readers. The result is a cornucopia of fantastic characters and timeless adventures, stylishly retold by a modern literary visionary. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

In this, her second novel, (awarded the 1967 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) Angela Carter''s brilliant imagination and starting intensity of style explore and extend the nature and boundaries of love.

''Curiosity is the most fleeting of pleasures; the moment is satisfied, it ceases to exist and it always proves very, very expensive.'' Angela Carter''s playful and subversive retellings of Charles Perrault''s classic fairy tales conjure up a world of resourceful women, black-hearted villains, wily animals and incredible transformations. In these seven stories, bristling with frank, earthy humour and gothic imagination, nothing is as it seems. This book includes Bluebeard, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, The Sleeping Beauty of the Wood, Cinderella: or, The Glass Slipper, Ricky with the Tuft and The Foolish Wishes.

En Noches en el circo, Carter ha inventado una nueva voz ronca para Fevvers, la heroina, que nos devuelve al rico mundo del fin del siglo XIX y las variedades humanas y animales de entonces... Fevvers: La favorita de las capitales europeas, cortejada por principes, pintada por Toulouse Lautrec, la mas grande aerialiste del siglo. Fevvers: dando un perezoso salto mortal entre el siglo diecinueve y el veinte, entre los viejos suenos y los nuevos comienzos, ayudada por un par de alas que no pueden ser reales, pero lo son. Fevvers: la Venus del arrabal, un metro noventa en medias. Obsesionado con Fevvers, constantemente acosado por la bruja anarquista que viste y cuida de la joven, un inocente y apuesto periodista, Jack Walser, emprende un viaje que lo lleva de Londres a Siberia via San Petersburgo, lo saca de sus certezas masculinas, y lo mete en un mundo de alegria y peligro, el mundo circense del coronel Kearney en el que la vida es "el juego ludico."

People and animals are never what they seem. Men turn into werewolves in Angela Carter''s classic play The Company of Wolves (now turned into a film). A beautiful girl turns out to be a vampire in Vampirella, a Transylvanian fable shadowed by the Great War. Meanwhile, Puss in Boots is out on the tiles, in a breathless entertainment. In Come Unto These Yellow Sand Carter takes you inside the eerie paintings of Richard Dadd '' to hear the beings within - the monsters produced by represssion - squeak and gibber and tell the truth''. In her introduction Angela Carter discusses the problems and delights of writing for radio: ''Radio retains the atavistic lure, the atavistic power, of voices in the dark, and the writers who gives he words to those voices retains some of the authority of the most antique tellers of tales''. The book includes nine reproductions of pictures by or of Richard Dadd.

''Wicked, wayward or otherwise, Carter''s classic collection is a very erudite expression of girl power'' MINA HOLLAND, GUARDIAN ''One of the century''s greatest writers'' SUNDAY TIMES This bestselling collection of stories extols the female virtues of discontent, sexual disruptiveness and bad manners. These are subversive tales by Ama Ata Aidoo, Jane Bowles, Angela Carter, Colette, Bessie Head, Jamaica Kincaid and Katherine Mansfield among others. They all have one thing in common; the wish to restore adventuresses and revolutionaries to their rightful position as models for all women. Reflecting the wide-ranging intelligence and deliciously anarchic taste of Angela Carter, some of these stories celebrate toughness and resilience, some of them low cunning: all of them are about not being nice.

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.

From familiar fairy tales and legends â Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves â Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.