May Sarton’s powerful and profound novel of an extraordinary life, and of one woman’s efforts to preserve the force and vitality of her experiences on the pages of a book For the second time in my life—and I am now seventy—I am embarking on an effort which may well come to nothing but which has possessed my mind, haunts, and will not let me sleep. From her opening statement, Cam, the narrator of The Magnificent Spinster, declares her grand intentions: to write a novel—a worthy and important one in celebration of her recently deceased friend and teacher, Jane Reid, whose dearth of family threatens the memory of her almost tangible greatness. And so she writes, re-creating Jane’s childhood, adolescence, and years as a teacher—including the one in which Cam was her student. She writes of Jane’s irrepressible spirit and the charming letters Jane penned about her adventures, and she recounts Jane’s growing isolation as she aged, which, rather than softening her, only made her shine brighter. Raw, warm, and beautifully rendered, The Magnificent Spinster is a stunning achievement—part memoir, part epistolary recollection, and part novel within a novel about friendship, memory, and the power of a brilliant soul.

The “magnificent spinster” is Jane Reid, a teacher who became not only a revered role model but a dear friend to Cam, the narrator of this novel within a novel. After Jane’s death, the accidental discovery of poems written by Cam in her youth to Jane prompts a flood of recollections—and frees Cam to imagine in fiction Jane’s passionately vibrant life.

From one of the world's most passionately engaged and acclaimed literary citizens comes Writing with Intent, the largest collection to date of Margaret Atwood's nonfiction, ranging from 1983 to 2005. Composed of autobiographical essays, cultural commentary, book reviews, and introductory pieces to great works of literature, this is the award-winning author's first book-length nonfiction publication in twenty years. Arranged chronologically, these writings display the development of Atwood's worldview as the world around her changes. Included are the Booker Prize -- winning author's reviews of books by John Updike, Italo Calvino, Toni Morrison, and others, as well as essays in which she remembers herself reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse at age nineteen, and discusses the influence of George Orwell's 1984 on the writing of The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood's New York Times Book Review piece that helped make Orhan Pamuk's Snow a bestseller can be found here, as well as a look back on a family trip to Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion, and her "Letter to America," written after September 11, 2001. The insightful and memorable pieces in this book serve as a testament to Atwood's career, reminding readers why she is one of the most esteemed writers of our time.

May Sarton's love for Juliette Huxley, ignited that first moment she saw her in 1936, transcended sixty years of friendship, passion, silence, and reconciliation. In the breadth and variation of these letters, we see Sarton in all her complexities and are privy to the nuances of her rich amitie amoureuse with Juliette, the preeminent muse and most enduring love of her life. The letters chart their meeting; May's affair with Juliette's husband, Julian (brother of Aldous Huxley), before the war; her intense involvement with Juliette after the war; and the ardent and life-enhancing friendship that endured between them until Juliette's death. While May's intimate relationship with Julian had not been a secret, her more powerful emotions for Juliette had. May's fiery passion was a seductive yet sometimes destructive force. Her feelings for and demands on Juliette were often overwhelming to them both. Indeed, Juliette refused all contact with May for nearly twenty-five years, the consequence of May's impulsive threat to tell Julian of their intimacy. The silence was devastating to May, but her love for Juliette never diminished. Their reconciliation after Julian's death was not so much a rekindling as it was a testament to the profound affinities between them.

From Rhonda Woodward, a writer with “sparkle and heart,” comes a beloved Signet Regency Romance—available digitally for the first time. Luck has always eluded Celia Langston. When her parents passed away ten years ago, she had to make her own way in the world, forsaking a come-out Season in London—and any chance at marriage. But Celia, now a governess, has never been one for self-pity. Rather, at the age of six-and-twenty, she has accepted the lot Fate has dealt her—that of a spinster…With his handsome face, reputation for bravery in the war, and princely fortune, the Duke of Severly has never suffered for want of female companionship. The crème de la crème hang on his every word. So when he takes notice of his nephews’ governess—for even the plainest of gray dresses cannot conceal her regal poise and delicious curves—Severly surprises even himself. For one, he has never admired a woman below his station, let alone a governess. For another, Celia seems to hold a grudge against him. But her rejection of him only fans the flames of his desire, and Severly knows he’s in for a long and difficult chase…“Rhonda Woodward shows a definite flair for the Regency period.”—The Romance Reader“A talented writer.”—Rakehell“[Rhonda Woodward has] historically accurate writing that shines.”—All About Romance

The first biography of May Sarton: a brilliant revelation of the life and work of a literary figure who influenced her thousands of readers not only by her novels and poetry, but by her life and her writings about it. May Sarton's career stretched from 1930 (early sonnets published in Poetry magazine) to 1995 (her journal At Eighty-Two). She wrote more than twenty novels, and twenty-five books of poems and journals. The acclaimed biographer Margot Peters was given full access to Sarton's letters, journals, and notes, and during five years of research came to know Sarton herself--the complex woman and artist. She gives us a compelling portrait of Sarton the actress, the poet, the novelist, the feminist, the writer who struggled for literary acceptance. She shows us, beneath Sarton's exhilarating, irresistible spirit, the needy courtier and seducer, the woman whose creativity was propelled by the psychic drama she created in others. We watch young May at age two as she is abruptly uprooted from her native Belgium by World War I, a child ignored both by her mother, who was intent on her own artistic vision and reluctant to cope with a child, and by her father, obsessed with his academic research. We see Sarton as a young girl in America, and then later, at nineteen, choosing a life in the theatre, landing a job in Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory, and gathering what would become a tight-knit coterie of friends and lovers . . . Sarton beginning to write poetry and novels . . . Sarton making friends with Elizabeth Bowen and Julian Huxley, Erika and Klaus Mann, Virginia Woolf, the poet H.D.--charming and enlisting them with her work, her vitality, her hunger for love, driven by her need to conquer (among her conquests: Bowen, Huxley, and later his wife, Juliette). We see her intense friendships with literary pals, including Muriel Rukeyser (her lover), and Louise Bogan, Sarton's "literary sibling, who at once encouraged her and excluded her from a world in which Bogan was a central figure. We see Sarton begin to create in the spiritual journals that inspired the devotion of readers the image of a strong, independent woman who lived peacefully with solitude--an image that contradicted the reality of her neediness, loneliness, and isolation as she pushed away loved ones with her demands and betrayals. A fascinating portrait of one of our major literary figures--a book that for the first time reveals the life that she herself kept hidden.

Winner of the American Book Award: May Sarton’s honest and engrossing journal of her seventieth year, spent living and working on the Maine coast. May Sarton’s journals are a captivating look at a rich artistic life. In this, her ode to aging, she savors the daily pleasures of tending to her garden, caring for her dogs, and entertaining guests at her beloved Maine home by the sea. Her reminiscences are raw, and her observations are infused with the poetic candor for which Sarton—over the course of her decades-long career—became known. An enlightening glimpse into a time—the early 1980s—and an age, At Seventy is at once specific and universal, providing a unique window into septuagenarian life that readers of all generations will enjoy. At times mournful and at others hopeful, this is a beautiful memoir of the year in which Sarton, looking back on it all, could proclaim, “I am more myself than I have ever been.”

Guide with more than two thousand bibliographic entries and cross-references. It includes journal articles, book chapters, essays, and doctoral dissertations, as well as complete books.

The writings of feminist author May Sarton, though often underappreciated during her lifetime, have attracted a wider audience since her death in 1995. This text is a guide to Sarton's poetry, novels, and memoirs for students and the interested general reader. Fulk (English, John Brown U.) provides biographical background information, discusses the primary themes in Sarton's writing, and emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of her thought. c. Book News Inc.

An indispensable collection of essays reflecting on the historical and cultural relevance of feminist movements across the globe In these remarkably far-reaching writings, author and journalist Valerie Miner delivers a complex and engaging volume of essential reading. This book touches on topics ranging from suburban housewives to lesbian identity to feminist thought. Miner provides an important perspective on the interrelated concepts of authorship, gender identity, and social criticism. Included are examinations of the works of Grace Paley, Margaret Atwood, and May Sarton, meditations on writing, and reflections on the cultural legacy of feminism. Miner’s insights are both perspicacious and thought provoking. Written with profound passion and knowledge, these tracts are of tremendous value to all readers engaged with the politics of equality.