ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE BRITISH WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

''She uses words with the enjoyment and mastery with which Renoir used to paint'' REBECCA WEST

''Lehmann legitimised a type of writing that took on deep personal themes'' ENGLISH PEN

''No English writer has told the pains of women in love more truly or more movingly'' MARGHANITA LASKI

Grace Fairfax lives with her dull, conventional husband Tom in a grey manufacturing town in the north of England. At thirty-four she finds that her external life of dreary routine fails to match up to her lush, wistful and dreamy internal life. Norah, her energetic and chaotic friend, is equally settled in her own marriage to an irritable university professor. Then Hugh Miller and his sister Claire descend upon the quiet town. On all four, the hypnotic charm of these two visitors exerts an enchanting spell. And after their departure, life - having been violently disrupted - will never be quite the same again . . .