Books published by publisher Faber andamp

Peter Straub called Robert Aickman 'this century's most profound writer of what we call horror stories'. Aickman's 'strange stories' (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia. His characters are ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds. First published in the USA in 1988 and in the UK in 1990 The Wine-Dark Sea contains eight stories that will leave the reader unsettled as the protagonists' fears and desires, at once illogical and terrifying, culminate in a disturbing yet enigmatic ending. For fans of the horror genre Robert Aickman is a must read. As Peter Straub notes in his introduction 'Aickman's originality was rooted in need - he had to write these stories, and that is why they are worth reading and rereading'. 'Superb tales of suspenseful unease . . . a contemporary master of the genre.' Publishers Weekly 'Aickman's effects are so concentrated you'll be well advised not to read more than one story at a time.' Books

First published in 1955, Katherine Briggs' story about the hobgoblin whose charge it is to protect and influence the unloving Puritan family who come to live at Widford Manor after the Civil War is a classic of English children's writing. Hobberdy Dick's benign works in favour of the characters carry the story from sadness to delight; but it is his character as ancient guardian that holds the reader. For the true conclusion is that sanctioned by fairy lore: the offer of mortal cloth for Dick to wear which will bring him eternal release from servitude. All these strands are intertwined with wonderful ease. Katharine Briggs's absorption in 'the personnel of fairyland' confers a naturalness to the supernatural goings-on, while the precise attention she gives to its setting reinforces this. Much of her youth had been spent in Scotland, but in 1939 she had bought a house in Burford and her love of the Cotswolds, with their green roads, their barrows, and their standing stones bring accuracy and, above all, warmth to her portrayal of both landscape and people.

More Light and the other 'ladies of the Emperor' have been immured with the recently deceased Chinese ruler. Used to a secure and luxurious existence, they are driven to extreme of human behaviour which test to the limit their mutual loyalty.More Light by Bryony Lavery was specially commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the BT National Connections Scheme for young people.

The complete text of James Joyce's dream masterpiece, one of the great works of twentieth-century literature. This copyright edition incorporates Joyce's own alterations and corrections to the first printing in 1939.'Here words are not the polite contortions of twentieth-century printer's ink. They are alive. They elbow their way on to the page, and glow and blaze and fade and disappear.' Samuel Beckett

"We think we know the ones we love." So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect, and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship--how we can ever truly know another person. It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful young housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset District in San Francisco, caring not only for her husband's fragile health, but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep, and everything changes. Lyrical, and surprising, The Story of a Marriage is, in the words of Khaled Housseini, "a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect."

The Leopard and the Cliff has been out of print for a long time with second-hand copies being elusive; nonetheless it has a grim resonance with today demonstrating the futility of fighting in that part of the world.'Wallace Breem is a writer who never disappoints one. He has an extraordinary power of treating military disaster in depth and yet with pace, whether on the frontiers of Rome or British India, and of analysing the tensions of command. Gripping as an action story, deeply moving on the individual level, it involves one as an eye-witness from beginning to end.' Mary Renault'I found the book gripping. I am not a Frontier man but the account of the tribal situation on the Frontier and of the atmosphere accords with all I have read or heard about it. The author brings out movingly and with skill several points of vital importance to an understanding of British India and the Frontier in particular. Everything depended on India (in this case Pathan) co-operation; this broke down once the British showed lack of confidence and began to retire. The clash of loyalties which then arose was highly dramatic and painful for those involved. The loneliness of such a man as Sandeman is also brought out with skill.' Philip Mason, author of A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men