In their heyday on the vaudeville stages of the early twentieth century, Dora Chance and her twin sister, Nora--unacknowledged daughters of Sir Melchior Hazard, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day--were known as the Lucky Chances, with private lives as colorful and erratic as their careers. But now, at age 75, Dora is typing up their life story, and it is a tale indeed that Angela Carter tells. A writer known for the richness of her imagination and wit as well as her feminist insights into matters large and small, she created in "Wise Children "an effervescent family saga that manages to celebrate the lore and magic of show business while also exploring the connections between parent and child, the transitory and the immortal, authenticity and falsehood.

"All is yours, everywhere is open to you - except the lock that the single key fits. You must promise, if you love me, to leave it well alone." When a 17 year old virgin marries a mature and charismatic Marquis it seems like a fairy tale. But when the Marquis is called away on their wedding night, leaving her only her only his keys and a single instruction, her curiosity leads her to uncover a dark secret. Bryony Lavery's new stage adaptation of Angela Carter's story opened as a Northern Stage production in September 2008.

From the liars of the fantastical and fabular and from the domains of the unconscious's mysteries...lie the brides in the Bloody Chamber - hunts unwillingly the Queen of the Vampires - slips Red Riding Hood into the arms of the Wolf - pimps our Puss-In-Boots for his lustful master. In tales that glitter and haunt - strange nuggets from a writer whose wayaward pen spills forth stylish, erotic, nightmarish jewe;s of prose - the old fairy stories live and breathe again, subtly altered, subtly changed.

A beautiful hardback edition of Angela Carter's feminist retelling of fairy tales - masterful, seductive and luminous. From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories. 'Magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality' Ian McEwan 'A quirky, original, and baroque stylist' Margaret Atwood VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Beautiful editions of great books to last a lifetime INTRODUCED BY HELEN SIMPSON

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.

The transformation of Desiderio's city into a mysterious kingdom is instantaneous: Hallucination flows with magical speed in every brain; avenues and plazas are suddenly as fertile as fairy-book forests. And the evil comes, too, as imaginary massacres fill the streets with blood, the dead return to question the living, and profound anxiety drives hundreds to suicide.

Behind it all stands Doctor Hoffman, whose gigantic generators crack the immutable surfaces of time and space and plunge civilization into a world without the chains - or structures - of reason. Only Desiderio, immune to mirages and fantasy, can defeat him. But Desiderio's battle will take him to the very brink of undeniable, irresistible desire.

Youth unemployment and underemployment is a serious issue in most developed countries in the world. Having few young people in the workplace has serious and lasting consequences for generations of young people, their families, businesses and society as a whole. Dr Carter explores these important issues from multiple (and international) perspectives, offering research evidence and guiding frameworks from social and work psychology, to get more young people into good work. Young People, Employment and Work Psychology brings together educators, researchers, occupational psychologists, and government agencies responding to young people struggling to gain and sustain employment. Theoretically based and evidence-driven, this book explores the consequences of unemployment, suggests ways in which businesses can enable young people's first steps into employment and gives practical advice to young people and employers to prepare for and gain entry-level roles and develop more diverse workplaces. From the reasons why organizations are often reluctant to employ young people, to issues of motivation and confidence which often affect young people's perspective in looking for work, the book covers several interventions within both the public and private sector. This book is an invaluable resource for employers, policy makers and professionals working with young people, as well as students and researchers in work and organizational psychology, HRM, business management and social policy.

This bestselling collection of stories extols the female virtues of discontent, sexual disruptiveness and bad manners Here are subversive tales - by Ama Ata Aidoo, Jane Bowles, Angela Carter, Colette, Bessie Head, Jamaica Kincaid and Katherine Mansfield among others - 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.

Cover design by Jacqueline Groag 'This crazy world whirled about her, men and women dwarfed by toys and puppets, where even the birds were mechanical and the few human figures went masked ...She was in the night again, and the doll was herself' One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave her rural home, she is sent to London to live with relatives she has never met: gentle Aunt Margaret, mute since her wedding day; and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn. Brooding over all is Uncle Philip, who loves only the puppets he creates in his workshop, which are life-sized - and uncannily life-like.

Youth unemployment and underemployment is a serious issue in most developed countries in the world. Having few young people in the workplace has serious and lasting consequences for generations of young people, their families, businesses and society as a whole. Dr Carter explores these important issues from multiple (and international) perspectives, offering research evidence and guiding frameworks from social and work psychology, to get more young people into good work. Young People, Employment and Work Psychology brings together educators, researchers, occupational psychologists, and government agencies responding to young people struggling to gain and sustain employment. Theoretically based and evidence-driven, this book explores the consequences of unemployment, suggests ways in which businesses can enable young people's first steps into employment and gives practical advice to young people and employers to prepare for and gain entry-level roles and develop more diverse workplaces. From the reasons why organizations are often reluctant to employ young people, to issues of motivation and confidence which often affect young people's perspective in looking for work, the book covers several interventions within both the public and private sector. This book is an invaluable resource for employers, policy makers and professionals working with young people, as well as students and researchers in work and organizational psychology, HRM, business management and social policy.

'The tone is one of intellectual relish . . . rational . . . refined . . . witty' NEW STATESMAN 'Her work is funny, sexy, frightening and brutal' EDMUND GORDON, GUARDIAN 'Angela Carter liked to blur boundaries and break rules' GABY WOOD, INDEPENDENT Celebrating five decades of the feminist publisher, each of the Five Gold Reads represents an iconic moment in Virago's history, from the 1970s to today. '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.

Sophi Fevvers--the toast of Europe's capitals, courted by the Prince of Wales, painted by Toulouse-Lautrec--is an "aerialiste extraordinaire," star of Colonel Kearney's circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover Fevvers's true identity: Is she part swan or all fake? Dazzled by his love for Fevvers, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser joins the circus on its tour. The journey takes him--and the reader--on an intoxicating trip through turn-of-the-century London, St. Petersburg, and Siberia--a tour so magical that only Angela Carter could have created it.

One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her childhood, she is sent to London to live with relatives she has never met: Aunt Margaret, beautiful and speechless, and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn, who kisses Melanie in the ruins of the pleasure gardens. And brooding Unlce Philip loves only the life-sized wooden puppets he creates in his toyshop. This classic gothic novel established Angela Carter as one of our most imaginative writers and augurs the themes of her later creative work.

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.

'The boldest of English women writers' LORNA SAGE 'Her writing is pyrotechnic - fuelled with ideas, packed with images and spangling the night with her starry language' OBSERVER 'She can glide from ancient to modern, from darkness to luminosity, from depravity to comedy without any hint of strain and without losing the elusive power of the original tales' THE TIMES 'This crazy world whirled around her, men and women dwarfed by toys and puppets, where even the birds are mechanical and the few human figures went masked ... She was in the night once again, and the doll was herself.' One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave her rural home, she is sent to London to live with relatives she has never met: gentle Aunt Margaret, mute since her wedding day; and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn. Brooding over all is Uncle Philip, who loves only the puppets he creates in his workshop, which are life-sized - and uncannily life-like.

Using the cover artwork of our much-loved Virago Modern Classics hardback range, these elegant porcelain mugs celebrate three of our most popular titles: The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; and Good Behaviour by Molly Keane. They are a must-have for all Virago fans, and are surely the most stylish way to enjoy your morning coffee! Each mug is presented in a beautiful gift-box with corresponding artwork. The mugs are dishwasher and microwave safe. The Talented Mr Ripley and The Magic Toyshop feature artwork by vintage textile designers Marian Mahler and Jacqueline Groag. Good Behaviour features a cover by award-winning designers Eley Kishimoto: http://www.eleykishimoto.com/

This crazy world whirled around her, men and women dwarfed by toys and puppets, where even the birds are mechanical and the few human figures went masked... She was in the night once again, and the doll was herself.' Melanie walks in the midnight garden, wearing her mother's wedding dress; naked she climbs the apple tree in the black of the moon. Omens of disaster, swiftly following, transport Melanie from rural comfort to London, to the Magic Toyshop. To the red-haired, dancing Finn, the gentle Francie, dumb Aunt Margaret and Uncle Phillip. Francie plays curious night music, Finn kisses fifteen-year-old Melanie in the mysterious ruins of the pleasure gardens. Brooding over all is Uncle Philip: Uncle Philip, with blank eyes the colour of wet newspaper, making puppets the size of men, and clockwork roses. He loves his magic puppets, but hates the love of man for woman, boy for girl, brother for sister...

'Angela Carter has influenced a whole generation of fellow writers towards dream worlds of baroque splendour, fairy tale horror, and visions of the alienated wreckage of a future world. In NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS, she has invented a new, raunchy, raucous, Cockney voice for her heroine Fevvers, taking us back into a rich, turn of the 19th century world, which reeks of human and animal variety' The Times.

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.

In The Bloody Chamber, Carter's famous collection of deeply unsettling stories inspired by fairy tales, a Beauty is turned into a Beast and Little Red Riding's grandmother is stoned to death as a witch; a young music student is swept off her feet in Paris by a middle-aged aristocrat and transported to his ancestral abode to re-enact the story of Bluebeard against a sumptuous fin de siecle background; a British soldier on a cycling holiday in Transylvania in the summer of 1914 finds himself the guest of an alluring female vampire. By contrast, in Wise Children, Carter's last novel), the comic, the bawdy and the life-enhancing prevail. An irrepressible elderly lady recalls the many colourful decades she and her sister spent as vaudeville performers - a tale as full of twins and mistaken identities as any plot of Shake- speare's. The early collection, Fireworks, reveals Carter taking her first forays into the fantastic writing that was to become her unforgettable legacy. The Everyman's Library omnibus gathers the best of Angela Carter in one astonishing volume.

A richly comic tale of the tangled fortunes of two theatrical families, the hazards and chances, Angela Carter's witty and bawdy newnovel is populated with as many sets of twins, and mistaken identitiesas any Shakespeare comedy, and celebrates the magic of over a century of show business.

A modern fable, a post-apocalyptic romance, a gothic horror story; Angela Carter's genre-defying fantasia Heroes and Villains includes an introduction by Robert Coover in Penguin Modern Classics. Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete with her father and the other Professors. Outside, where the land is thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live the Barbarians, who raid and pillage in order to survive. Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilized world but, fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape. There, beyond the wire fences, she will discover a decaying paradise, encounter the tattooed Barbarian boy Jewel and go beyond the darkest limits of her imagination. Playful, sensuous, violent and gripping, Heroes and Villains is an ambiguous and deliriously rich blend of post-apocalyptic fiction, gothic fantasy, literary allusion and twisted romance. Angela Carter (1940-92) was born in Eastbourne and later evacuated to live with her grandmother in Yorkshire. She read English at Bristol University, and after escaping an early marriage went to live in Japan for a number of years. She wrote nine novels, which blend fantasy, science fiction and gothic, and is often referred to as a writer of magical realism. If you enjoyed Heroes and Villains, you might like Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Angela Carter is a genius' Victoria Glendinning 'An unashamed fantasist, a fabulist of daemonic energy' The Times

'I started to write short pieces when I was living in a room too small to write a novel in.' So says Angela Carter of this collection, written during a period living in Toyko. These exotic, sensuous stories represent Carter's first major achievement in the short story form. Lush imaginary forests, a murderous puppet show and an expressionistic vision of Japan: each one instantly conjures an atmosphere, dark and luminous in turn, and from the recognisably daring imagination of one of the great twentieth-century stylists.