This is the end, for the moment, of all my thinking, this is my unfinal conclusion. There is no reason in tangible things, and no system in the ordinary ways of the world. Hands were made to grope, and feet to stumble, and the only things you may count on are the unaccountable things. System is a fairy and a dream, you never find system where or when you expect it. There are no reasons except reasons you and I don't know. I should not be really surprised if the policeman across the way grew wings, or if the deep sea rose and washed out the chaos of the land. I should not raise my eyebrows if the daily press became the Little Sunbeam of the Home, or if Cabinet Ministers struck for a decrease of wages. I feel no security in facts, precedent seems no protection to me. The wisdom you can find in an Encyclopedia, or in Selfridge's Information Bureau, seems to me just a transitory adaptation to quicksand circumstances.

"The Little World" is a fascinating travel book, in which Benson describes her travels around the world, concentrating on China and the USA.

This Is the End (1917) is a novel by Stella Benson. Based on the author's experience in the movement for women's suffrage, This Is the End is a story of identity and social class set in the London neighborhood of Hackney. As Jay attempts to break from her restrictive past, her brother Kew returns from the First World War scarred by his experiences and disillusioned with life at home. Benson's meditative, diaristic prose guides the reader along the paths of change and confrontation faced by her protagonists, immersing them in the tumultuous decade in which the novel was written. "This is the end, for the moment, of all my thinking, this is my unfinal conclusion. There is no reason in tangible things, and no system in the ordinary ways of the world. Hands were made to grope, and feet to stumble, and the only things you may count on are the unaccountable things. System is a fairy and a dream, you never find system where or when you expect it. There are no reasons except reasons you and I don't know." Guided by a philosophical sense of the world, Jay-formerly Jane Elizabeth-longs to escape the confines of her life in the countryside. Without telling her family, she leaves for London and adopts a new identity, exposing herself for the first time in her life to the rhythms of working-class existence. When her brother Kew returns from the Great War and fails to find her at home, he comes to the city in search of his sister. Bonded by tragedy, the two orphans grow to respect one another as adults, both of them scarred in their own way by the expectations placed on young men and women in a decade of tremendous cultural change. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Stella Benson's This Is the End is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Living Alone (1919) is a novel by Stella Benson. Considered a pioneering work of fantasy fiction, Living Alone is a story of magic set in London during the First World War. Benson's meditative, diaristic prose guides the reader alongside her protagonist, a young woman introduced to a world of witchcraft and wizardry at "the House of Living Alone." "Nothing else happened in that room. At least nothing more important than the ordinary manifestations attendant upon magic. The lamp had tremulously gone out. Coloured flames danced about the Stranger's head. One felt the thrill of a purring cat against one's ankles, one saw its green eyes glare. But these things hardly counted." Guided by her political commitments, Sarah Brown dedicates herself to charity work during the First World War. When a witch invites her to stay in a mysterious home, Sarah embarks on the adventure of a lifetime with her loyal dog David. Described by its author in playfully mysterious terms-"This is not a real book."-Living Alone is a unique and haunting masterpiece that looks upon a tumultuous historical period with fresh perspective, presenting a story of growth and identity in an intoxicating world of magic and mystery. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Stella Benson's Living Alone is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

This Is the End (1917) is a novel by Stella Benson. Based on the author's experience in the movement for women's suffrage, This Is the End is a story of identity and social class set in the London neighborhood of Hackney. As Jay attempts to break from her restrictive past, her brother Kew returns from the First World War scarred by his experiences and disillusioned with life at home. Benson's meditative, diaristic prose guides the reader along the paths of change and confrontation faced by her protagonists, immersing them in the tumultuous decade in which the novel was written. "This is the end, for the moment, of all my thinking, this is my unfinal conclusion. There is no reason in tangible things, and no system in the ordinary ways of the world. Hands were made to grope, and feet to stumble, and the only things you may count on are the unaccountable things. System is a fairy and a dream, you never find system where or when you expect it. There are no reasons except reasons you and I don't know." Guided by a philosophical sense of the world, Jay-formerly Jane Elizabeth-longs to escape the confines of her life in the countryside. Without telling her family, she leaves for London and adopts a new identity, exposing herself for the first time in her life to the rhythms of working-class existence. When her brother Kew returns from the Great War and fails to find her at home, he comes to the city in search of his sister. Bonded by tragedy, the two orphans grow to respect one another as adults, both of them scarred in their own way by the expectations placed on young men and women in a decade of tremendous cultural change. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Stella Benson's This Is the End is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Living Alone (1919) is a novel by Stella Benson. Considered a pioneering work of fantasy fiction, Living Alone is a story of magic set in London during the First World War. Benson's meditative, diaristic prose guides the reader alongside her protagonist, a young woman introduced to a world of witchcraft and wizardry at "the House of Living Alone." "Nothing else happened in that room. At least nothing more important than the ordinary manifestations attendant upon magic. The lamp had tremulously gone out. Coloured flames danced about the Stranger's head. One felt the thrill of a purring cat against one's ankles, one saw its green eyes glare. But these things hardly counted." Guided by her political commitments, Sarah Brown dedicates herself to charity work during the First World War. When a witch invites her to stay in a mysterious home, Sarah embarks on the adventure of a lifetime with her loyal dog David. Described by its author in playfully mysterious terms-"This is not a real book."-Living Alone is a unique and haunting masterpiece that looks upon a tumultuous historical period with fresh perspective, presenting a story of growth and identity in an intoxicating world of magic and mystery. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Stella Benson's Living Alone is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Twenty (1918) is a poetry collection by Stella Benson. Largely recognized for her work as an activist in the women's suffrage movement and for her popular novels, Benson was also an accomplished poet. Twenty, her debut volume, is a collection indebted to symbolism in which Benson reflects on her experiences as a young woman in a rapidly changing world. In "The Secret Day," Benson muses on the impossibility of peace in a time that refuses to slow: "My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired, / And now to-morrow comes and beats upon the door / [...] / So I have built To-day, more precious than a dream; / And I have painted peace upon the sky above." Responding to the horrors of a decade torn by war, Benson does what she can to maintain her own personal calm, to build a safe space apart from the world. In "Redneck's Song," she laments the years of her life spent obeying "the laws of men / Who worshipped law," declaring instead that "Those laws are dust / To-day..." In these poems shaped by her experience as an activist and pioneering feminist, the personal is inseparable from the political. Benson's identity, her present and her future, depend on this revolutionary thrust-no longer will she "shut [her] eyes" and "hold [her] tongue." It may be "their path," but she will make her own "groove," her own way through life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Stella Benson's Twenty is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Stella Benson's debut was one of the most acclaimed of her generation: "One of the brightest, most original, and best written books that have come my way for a long time," wrote Sir Henry Lucy. "As the mature work of an experienced author it would have been a remarkable achievement: being 'the first book of a new writer' it is an astonishing performance, ' hailed the reviewer from The Daily Graphic. In this incredibly original satirical novel we are introduced to the two main characters as The Gardener and The Suffragette, and so they remain throughout. Inhabiting a huge first chapter of 302 pages and then only a tiny second one of 8 pages, these two are wildly comic and disturbingly real at one and the same time. Benson's cheekiness in commenting directly to the reader on the progress of the story, the saltiness of her slightly cynical view of the world and its ways, and the strange newness of the tale she was telling meant that, on first publication in 1915, the literary world's curiosity was most certainly piqued. We begin by following The Gardener in a shambolic and romantic walking journey, as his inexperience leads him a merry dance through youth's many poses, away from his shabby boarding house in London, toward the coast. Along the way, he falls for The Suffragette, but she rejects him. The problem is, she likes him, despite herself. But is she capable of traditional love? And so we also follow her, led through not only her political convictions, but also all the less certain parts of her personality, about which she is blindingly honest. Can she fit love for The Gardener into her busy passion for women's rights? Does she really want to? She thinks probably not. And yet... Both of them are the beautifully mixed, endearingly crazy creations of Benson's unusual talent, which spins its fizzing wit on a sixpence, creating absurd comedy and wise satire out of thin air. Delivering, in its fools' progress, one of the significant debuts of its era and one of the funniest novels of the suffragette movement in one package, I Pose was hailed immediately as a classic of a new kind, establishing Stella Benson as a fresh genius of the human spirit, in all its poses. STELLA BENSON was born at Lutwyche Hall on Wenlock Edge in Shropshire in 1892. Having escaped restrictive family life, she worked in London in the suffrage movement and in social work in the poorest areas. She married Shaemas O'Gorman Anderson in 1921, and travelled the world with him to his many diplomatic posts, mainly in China. She wrote eight witty, highly individual, acclaimed novels, as well as stories, travel essays and poetry. Consumptive for most of her life, she died in Hongay in French Indochina in 1933, at the age of 41. On her death, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary "A curious feeling: when a writer like Stella Benson dies, that one's response is diminished; Here and Now won't be lit up by her: it's life lessened."