The provincial lady finds an apartment in London, visits nightclubs and casinos, and meets the intellectuals and eccentrics of London society.

"She could never, looking backwards, remember a time when she had not known that a woman's failure or success in life depended entirely upon whether or not she succeeded in getting a husband" When in the company of a young man a dutiful daughter should immediately assume an air of fresh, sparkling enjoyment. She should not speak of "being friends" with him-a young man is either eligible or he is not-and never, but never, should she get herself talked about, for a young girl who does so is doomed. "Men may dance with her, or flirt with her, but they don't propose." It would be quite a coup for a girl to find a husband during her first season, but if, God forbid, three seasons pass without success, she must join the ranks of those sad women who are a great embarrassment to society and, above all, to their disappointed mothers . . . With such thoughts in mind, how can Monica fail to look forward to her first ball?

Tuesday, 23rd 'Late nights do not suit me. Try to think I look interestingly haggard but have to admit that Unkempt Blowsiness is fitter description' Way before that city slicker, Bridget Jones, there was the Provincial Daughter -- an intelligent woman juggling too little money with too many kids in rural obscurity. In between taking deliveries of coal and attending ghastly provincial parties, our heroine makes tentative forays into the bright lights of London, seeking literary fame and fortune.

Reproduction of the original.

As mass media burgeoned in the years between the first and second world wars, so did another phenomenon—celebrity. Beginning in Hollywood with the studio-orchestrated transformation of uncredited actors into brand-name stars, celebrity also spread to writers, whose personal appearances and private lives came to fascinate readers as much as their work. Women, Celebrity, and Literary Culture between the Wars profiles seven American, Canadian, and British women writers—Dorothy Parker, Anita Loos, Mae West, L. M. Montgomery, Margaret Kennedy, Stella Gibbons, and E. M. Delafield—who achieved literary celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s and whose work remains popular even today. Faye Hammill investigates how the fame and commercial success of these writers—as well as their gender—affected the literary reception of their work. She explores how women writers sought to fashion their own celebrity images through various kinds of public performance and how the media appropriated these writers for particular cultural discourses. She also reassesses the relationship between celebrity culture and literary culture, demonstrating how the commercial success of these writers caused literary elites to denigrate their writing as "middlebrow," despite the fact that their work often challenged middle-class ideals of marriage, home, and family and complicated class categories and lines of social discrimination. The first comparative study of North American and British literary celebrity, Women, Celebrity, and Literary Culture between the Wars offers a nuanced appreciation of the middlebrow in relation to modernism and popular culture.

This exquisite novel tells the story of one of the most compelling heroines in modern literature--Emma Bovary. "Madame Bovary has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone; it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgement." - Henry James Unhappily married to a devoted, clumsy provincial doctor, Emma revolts against the ordinariness of her life by pursuing voluptuous dreams of ecstasy and love. But her sensuous and sentimental desires lead her only to suffering corruption and downfall. A brilliant psychological portrait, Madame Bovary searingly depicts the human mind in search of transcendence. Who is Madame Bovary? Flaubert's answer to this question was superb: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi." Acclaimed as a masterpiece upon its publication in 1857, the work catapulted Flaubert to the ranks of the world's greatest novelists. This volume, with its fine translation by Lowell Bair, a perceptive introduction by Leo Bersani, and a complete supplement of essays and critical comments, is the indispensable Madame Bovary.

This story is set in England during World War I and revolves around Miss Vivian, a 29-year-old woman. In this novel, Miss Vivian is the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt. She lives with her parents at their rural estate 'Plessings'. It is to be admired that Vivian, who has never done a day's work in her life, has a tenacious spirit that propels her in organizing, supervising and directing the Midlands Supply Depot with great efficiency. Meanwhile across the street the 'war girls' live in a very overcrowded hostel, here they share rooms with hardly any hot water and pretty much unpalatable food.

A look at how 'ordinary' people in London and Birmingham lived, worked and coped during World War II, through the diary of an "ordinary commonplace Londoner."

Following the success of her literary efforts, The Provincial Lady abandons the daily domestic grind of leaking ceilings and dead rodents in the bathroom for a publicity trip to America. Though initially nervous - as Miss S. of the Post-Office sagely advises, the country is, after all, A Long Way Off - she takes the plunge and sets off. From mixing with the literati to negotiating an unaccustomed number of bath-taps, rebuffing assumptions about England's perpetual fog to visiting her first night-club, our heroine determinedly immerses herself in both living, and providing wry commentary upon, the American Way.