Böcker utgivna av Handheld Press

A novel of the Fall of France and a trans-Atlantic affair.

Tatting uses thread to weave intricate patterns in knotwork. This idiosyncratic novel from 1957 by Faith Compton Mackenzie traces patterns across the Cornish landscape in the style of David Garnett and Sylvia Townsend Warner.It is 1909. Ariadne is a starving Irish artist, existing on her memories of having once known Beardsley and Wilde. In comes Laura Mallory to visit her, and discreetly goes to the grocer to buy food and pay Ariadne's bill. Laura has recently married Guy, a poetwhom she had met only weeks before. Relieved to not have to pay rent for the summer or have to finally learn to cook, Guy and Laura travel to Cornwall on the invitation of Father St John to come and stay at his vicarage. There is a large Alsatian called Rex who wants only to roam the fields at night, and there is a large farmer called Mr Williams who hides in ditches rather than meet the ladies. Miss Josephine Want, a domineering parishioner, is fuming at the unwanted visitors, and then Guy and Laura invite Ariadne to Cornwall to paint a fresco and be fed. The visit of the triumphantly parasitical artist causes havoc.

It is 1935. Robert Owen is the only son from a Welsh vicarage, now a brilliant pilot and flying instructor, recently of the Royal Air Force. He has taken a new job at the flying school at Best, a prosperous cathedral town in England. Flying has never seemed so alluring and so terrifying. Human frailty is tested in the drilling and repetition of hours in flight, and Robert’s skills as a pilot and in diplomacy with pupils with delusions about their competence are tested to their limits. And then he falls in love, risking his heart as well as his body in the air.

In 2003 the former Women's Press editor and critic Sarah LeFanu published her acclaimed biography of Rose Macaulay with Virago Press. Dreaming of Rose is a memoir of a woman juggling the demands of teaching, research and writing while patching together a living.