Special Edition of this wonderful new book, numbered and signed in a cloth slipcase Written in an even more vivid and direct style than her celebrated memoirs, Diana Athill's letters to the American poet Edward Field reveal a sharply intelligent woman with a brilliant sense of humour, a keen eye for the absurd, a fierce loyalty and a passionate zest for life. This intimate correspondence spanning thirty years covers her final years as an editor at Andre Deutsch, her retirement and immersion in her own writing, her growing fame and encroaching old age, and gives a fascinating insight into a life fully lived. Edited, selected and introduced by Diana Athill, and annotated with her own delightful notes, this funny, revealing and immensely readable collection will bring enormous pleasure to her many thousands of readers.

What is it like to be old? Written in her nineties, when she was free from any inhibitions she may have once had, Diana Athill reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age can bring, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Lively, fearless and humorous, Somewhere Towards the End encapsulates the vibrant final decades of Athill's life. Filled with events, love and friendships, this is a memoir about maintaining hope, joy and vigour in later life, resisting regret, and questioning the beliefs and customs of your own generation.

England, in the mid-fifties. Meg Bailey has always aspired to live a respectable life. With her best friend, Roxane, she moves from secondary school to an un-bohemian art college in Oxford. Under the watchful eye of Roxanne's mother, Mrs Wheeler, the two girls flourish in Oxfordian society. But Meg constantly longs for more. Not content to stay in Oxford, she finds a job in London. Roxane stays behind and marries Dick, a man of Mrs Wheeler's choosing. As Meg's independence grows, Dick suddenly appears in London for work. A connection to her past, Meg and Dick's friendship flourishes, blurring the lines of loyalty between what is and what was in a way that changes life for these three friends forever. As sharp and starling now as when it was written, this unflinching and candid book of love and betrayal encapsulates Diana Athill's gift of storytelling at its finest.

Hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph), this book reflects candidly, sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old. Charming readers, writers, and critics alike, the memoir won the Costa Award for Biography and made Athill, then ninety-one, a surprising literary star. Diana Athill was one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Athill made her reputation for the frankness and precisely expressed wisdom of her memoirs. Writing in her ninety-first year, "entirely untamed about both old and new conventions" (Literary Review) and freed from any of the inhibitions that even she may have once had, Athill reflects candidly, and sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old-the losses and occasionally the gains that age brings, the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Distinguished by "remarkable intelligence...[and the] easy elegance of her prose" (Daily Telegraph), this short, well-crafted book, hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph) presents an inspiring work for those hoping to flourish in their later years.

Diana Athill helped shape some of the most celebrated books in modern literature. For nearly five decades, she edited (and nursed and coerced and coaxed) writers including Jean Rhys, V. S. Naipaul and Philip Roth. From the pleasures, intrigues and complexities of a life spent among authors and manuscripts to an account of Diana's own turn to writing, this is the story of an illustrious career.

Diana Athill, born in 1917, made her reputation as a writer with the candour of her memoirs; through her commitment, in her words, 'to understand, to be aware, to touch the truth'. In a celebration of her life and writing, Life Class brings together four of her best-loved memoirs in one volume, spanning her very English childhood, her life and loves during the Second World War, her publishing career at Andre Deutsch, and her reflections on old age. Introduced by Ian Jack, Diana Athill's selected memoirs are a remarkable testament to an unusual and fully lived life.

This is a collection of short stories by writer Diana Athill.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2006 COMMONWEALTH WRITERS' PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN PRIZE A BBC2 BIG JUBILEE BETWEEN THE COVERS READ London, 1806. William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His sentence: to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. Soon Thornhill, a man no better or worse than most, has to make the most difficult decision of his life.

A charming, vibrant diary of Diana Athill's holiday to Florence in the late 1940s. In August 1947, Diana Athill travelled to Florence by the Golden Arrow train for a two-week holiday with her good friend Pen. In this playful diary of that trip, Athill recorded her observations and adventures - eating with (and paid for by) the hopeful men they meet on their travels, admiring architectural sights, sampling delicious pastries, eking out their budget and getting into scrapes. Written with an arresting immediacy and infused with an exhilarating joie de vivre, A Florence Diary is a bright, colourful evocation of a time long lost, and a vibrant portrait of a city that will be deliciously familiar to any contemporary traveller.

This is the story of how and why a talented writer came to take his own life. When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, an Egyptian in exile, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi moved into her flat, they shared housework and holidays, and a life of easy intimacy seemed to beckon. But Didi's sweetness and intelligence soon revealed a darker side - he was a gambler, a drinker and a womanizer, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. With painful honesty, Athill explores the three years they spent together, a period that culminated in Didi's suicide - in her home - an event he described in the journals he left for her to read as 'the one authentic act of my life'.

Written with an intimacy and spontaneity even more revealing than her celebrated memoirs, Diana Athill's correspondence with the American poet Edward Field covers thirty years of pleasure and pain, fame and gossip, relationships and ailments. Edited, selected and introduced by Athill, this collection of those letters covers her career as an editor and the adventure of her retirement, revealing a sharply intelligent woman with a keen eye for the absurd, a brilliant turn of phrase and a wicked sense of humour. Vivid, direct and entertaining, Instead of a Book is a wonderful insight into a woman growing older without ever losing her zest for life.

Following a turbulent upbringing, a history of addiction and a committal to an asylum, the teachings of Malcolm X changed Hakim Jamal's life. He became an eloquent, rousing spokesperson for the Nation of Islam movement, moved to London, began a relationship with Gale Benson - the daughter of a British MP - and published a book about Malcolm X, with Diana Athill. Before long, however, he began behaving erratically again, and believed himself to be God. Raw and unflinching, Make Believe is a memoir of friendship, love, mania and injustice. A witness to his struggles, Athill reflects on her relationship with Hakim with characteristic empathy and candour, whilst charting the events that led to Gale's - and not long after, Hakim's - murder.

Despite her family's ailing finances, Diana Athill's childhood - spent in a lovely house in Norfolk - was blissful. In 1932, she fell in love with Paul: an undergraduate who tutored her younger brother. Within several years, she had moved to Oxford to study and they were engaged to be married. Then everything fell apart in the cruellest possible way. Athill's debut is also her most personal: a dissection of personal tragedy and the struggle to rebuild her life amid severe disappointment and loneliness. Unfolding throughout the Second World War, Instead of a Letter is an inspiring story of love and loss, heartbreak and hope, and a testament to her strength of character - her vivacity, honesty and perspicacity.

Yesterday Morning is a vivid recollection of Diana Athill's joyful beginnings. It is also a remarkable insight into a now vanished world; this is England in the 1920s, seen with a clear and unsentimental eye from the vantage point of the 21st century. Growing up in a Norfolk country house with servants, Athill's upbringing was rich and loving: filled with the pleasures of horse riding and the unfolding secrets of adults and sex. However, here, she probes these foundations, asking: does privilege equate to happiness?

What will you remember if you live to be 100? Diana Athill charmed readers with her prize-winning memoir Somewhere Towards the End, which transformed her into an unexpected literary star. Now, on the eve of her ninety-eighth birthday, Athill has written a sequel every bit as unsentimental, candid, and beguiling as her most beloved work. Writing from her cozy room in Highgate, London, Diana begins to reflect on the things that matter after a lifetime of remarkable experiences, and the memories that have risen to the surface and sustain her in her very old age. "My two valuable lessons are: avoid romanticism and abhor possessiveness," she writes. In warm, engaging prose she describes the bucolic pleasures of her grandmother's garden and the wonders of traveling as a young woman in Europe after the end of the Second World War. As her vivid, textured memories range across the decades, she relates with unflinching candor her harrowing experience as an expectant mother in her forties and crafts unforgettable portraits of friends, writers, and lovers. A pure joy to read, Alive, Alive Oh! sparkles with wise and often very funny reflections on the condition of being old. Athill reminds us of the joy and richness of every stage of life-and what it means to live life fully, without regrets.

What matters in the end? In the final years of life, which memories stand out? Writing from her retirement home in Highgate, London, as she approaches her 100th year, Diana Athill recalls in sparkling detail the moments in her life which sustain her. With vivid memories of the past mingled with candid, wise and often very funny reflections on the experience of being very old, Alive, Alive Oh! reminds us of the joy and richness to be found at every stage of life.

Behind the bar at Jameel's in Cairo hang two mugs engraved with the names of Ram and Font. During their years together in London, they drank many a pint of Bass from these mugs. But there is no Bass in Nasser's Egypt, so Ram and Font have to make do with a heady mixture of beer, vodka and whisky. Yearning for Bass they long to be far from a revolution that neither serves the people nor allows their rich aunts to live the life of leisure they are accustomed to. Stranded between two cultures, Ram and Font must choose between dangerous political opposition and reluctant acquiescence. First published in 1964, Beer in the Snooker Club is a classic of the literature of emigration.

When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi's quirks, which at first appeared so charming and sweet, soon revealed a darker side-he was a gambler, a drinker, and a womanizer, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. After a Funeral explores the years of their friendship; a period that culminated in Didi's suicide (in Athill's apartment). This bravura work "gives a new dimension to honesty, a new comprehension to love" (Vogue).