An eccentric professor saves a London Zoo ape from a rocket experiment in this dazzling classic by a trailblazing animal rights activist, introduced by Sarah Hall. 'Pitch-perfect.' Ali Smith 'So original.' Hilary Mantel 'Stunning.' Isabel Waidner 'Her beastly, risky best.' Eley Williams When my species has destroyed itself, we may need yours to start it all again. In London Zoo, Professor Darrylhyde is singing to the apes again. Outside their cage, he watches the two animals, longing to observe the mating ritual of this rare species. But Percy, inhibited by confinement and melancholy, is repulsing Edwina's desirous advances. Soon, the Professor's connection increases as he talks, croons, befriends - so when a scientist arrives on a secret governmental mission to launch Percy into space, he vows to secure his freedom. But when met by society's indifference, he takes matters into his own hands . . . A trailblazing animal rights campaigner, Brigid Brophy's sensational 1953 novel is as provocative and philosophical seventy years on. An electric moral fable, it is as much a blazingly satirical reflection on homo sapiens as the non-human - on our capacity for violence, red in tooth and claw, not only to other species, but our own.

'In the title story of [The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl] the main character, God himself, expresses a taste for writing that's sophisticated, stylish, literary. The words apply very well to [Brigid] Brophy's own best work.' New Republic 'What we have here is more common in England than America: reading that's at once very light and very intellectual. Consistent with her commitment to artifice and the rococo, Brophy believes in play... [She] is liveliest when speaking-or making the illustrious dead speak-of the life of art, of literature, music, architecture, which she thinks about a lot and knows a lot about.' Washington Post 'Tasty and nutritious... generally wise and witty... full of game-playing... Brigid Brophy remains a good though very British writer-balanced, erudite, sensible, unsubmissive to shrill sociological shibboleths, above all unscared.' Anthony Burgess, New York Times Book Review

Brigid Brophy first published her passionate, profoundly original Mozart the Dramatist in 1964, revisiting it subsequently in 1988. Organised by theme, the text offers brilliant readings of Mozart's five most famous operas - Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, and Die Zauberfloete - while a 1988 preface reconsiders Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito. Brophy's analysis is richly informed by her readings and interests in psychoanalysis, myth, and relations between the sexes, but her stress above all is on Mozart's 'unique excellence', his 'double supremacy' both as a 'classical' and 'psychological' artist. 'An illuminating, invigorating, thought-provoking and profoundly human book, of immense value to any lover of Mozart.' Jane Glover 'No one has ever written better on Mozart.' Peter Conrad, Observer 'Immensely enjoyable.' Peter Gay, London Review of Books

This study sets Mozart, especially his four most celebrated operas - "Il Seraglio", "Cosi Fan Tutte", "Don Giovanni" and "The Magic Flute", in the context of Enlightenment literature and thought. For this new edition, the author has revised a number of passages and has focused on "Idomeneo" and "La Clemenza di Tito".

The tweedy Miss Hetty Braid worships the lovely but selfish Miss Antonia Mount, her co-proprietor at the most exclusive finishing school on the French Riviera. The girls they teach are quite remarkable, though hardly in the sense of academic distinction. But trouble looms when Antonia announces that 'Royalty is coming.' The great day arrives, and though at first things go tolerably well, disaster springs from good intentions. This Faber Finds edition includes a 1987 introduction by Brigid Brophy and a new preface by Sir Peter Stothard. 'A wicked little entertainment... plaubly not meant for the moralists or naive.' Evening Standard 'An outrageously indelicate joke made in beautifully mannered prose.' Daily Herald 'Waspish and witty.' TLS

'[Beardsley's] vision is permanently that of a child lying in bed watching his mother dress for a dinner-party... He is allured, yet afraid to touch: driven back on a cold minuteness of detailed attention, and yet passionately curious, with the emotional and involved curiosity children give to sex.' Brigid Brophy first published her study of 'the most intensely and electrically erotic artist in the world' in 1968, at the height of her own powers and in the moment of a notable revival of interest - both scholarly and pop-cultural (amid 'the dandified realm of Carnavy Street') - in Beardsley's work. An infant prodigy, Beardsley retained through the brief years of his adult life the peculiar genius of a precocious child, and Brophy, well-versed in Freudian analyses, adroitly points out the polymorphous perversity of his pictures - that perversity, coupled with his inimitable graphic/monochromatic signature, accounting for why Beardsley, however 'high-baroque rococo' his style, has remained endlessly modern.

Nancy meets Marcus at a party. He is untidy, nervous, shy: women have never paid him any attention. But here is virgin clay from which Nancy can mould her Adam. She marries him, and on their wedding night Marcus realises he is as much her protege in sex as in other fields. But soon he is confident that, under her guiding hands, he had been transformed into a consummate lover; and he begins to feel the urge to slip his leash. 'Elegant, funny and erotic... a good showcase for [Brophy's] perceptions on life and art, her wit and her dazzling prose.' Telegraph 'Sly and sophisticated and written in a deceptively simple manner.' Kirkus Reviews 'Brophy has the enviable knack of combining precision with suggestiveness.' Saturday Review

The scandalous 1960s cult classic with a foreword by Eley Williams: when Anna is kissed by a masked figure at a New Year's Eve masquerade ball, a heady dance of seduction begins.

London, New Year's Eve. Snow falls on a Georgian mansion, vibrating with the festivities of an eighteenth-century themed masquerade ball within. Middle-aged divorcee Anna stands alone, mourning her youth - until the clock chimes midnight and a mysterious masked figure kisses her on the mouth. Thus begins a heady dance of seduction charged by other clandestine romances swirling around them, whipping the ball into an erotic frenzy of operatic proportions - until the night climaxes, revealing unease beneath the glitter ...

A scandalous sensation in 1964, Brigid Brophy's The Snow Ball is a dazzling festive classic ripe to seduce a new generation of readers.

This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!