Sarah Waters

I knew winter had arrived only when Diana’s walking-dresses changed from silk to corduroy, her cloaks from grenadine to sable; and when my own closet rail sagged with astrakhan, and camel’s-hair, and tweed.

They did her a cold roast after the manner of the Romans, goose stuffed with turkey stuffed with chicken stuffed with quail - the quail, I think, having a truffle in it.

You little slut!’ she said. ‘You little trollop! You whore, you harlot, you strumpet, you bitch!

I suspected that my boots had worn their way right through my stockings, and had started on the bare flesh of my toes and heels and ankles

a quick, sharp, agonised cry, as if the paper was hot and had burned me. The cry became a low, ragged moan that went on, and on, until I wondered that I had breath enough left to make it.

They walked together, and the world smiled to see it! They embraced on the street, and strangers were glad! While all the time I lived pale as a worm, cast out from pleasure, from comfort and ease.

This special 30th anniversary edition was published in the UK in 2020

Aurora Metro’s 30th anniversary as an i

Carole Spedding at Feminist Book Fortnight and Ros de Lanerolle at the Women’s Press offered us some mentoring and once we were apprized of an ISBN number we were all set to go.

with Germaine Greer’s adaptation of Lysistrata, Dacia Maraini’s historical play Veronica Franco, Courtesan and Poet and Nawal El Saadawi’s play Twelve Women in a Cell.