Angel

By Elizabeth Taylor

Book Overview

A darkly witty classic about literary worth, ambition, and romantic idealism set in turn-of-the-century England, with an introduction from Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall)

"A delicious satire on the career of schoolgirl sensation Angelica Deverell. She's a truly magnificent comic creation: petulant, paranoid and frighteningly prolific." (The Guardian)

Angelica Deverell lives above her diligent, drab mother's grocery shop in a dreary turn-of-the-century English neighborhood, but spends her days dreaming of handsome Paradise House, where her aunt is enthroned as a maid.

But in Angel's imagination, she is the mistress of the house, a realm of lavish opulence, of evening gowns and peacocks. Then she begins to write popular novels, and this fantasy becomes her life. And now that she has tasted success, Angel has no intention of letting anyone stand in her way--except, perhaps, herself.

Now back in print after 20 years, this under-recognized classic is (unlike Angel's own novels) self-aware, funny, and subtly layered. It both sharply satirizes its protagonist and acknowledges the intensity of her imagination and the rigor of her work, all the while seeing her as fully human, complicated, and even sympathetic.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00HU9KR02
• ISBN13: 9781590174975
• Release Date: February 2012
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

I loved this book!

I loved this book when I read it a number of years ago It was my favorite of all of Elizabeth Taylor's novels. A film adaptation in English by french director, Francois Ozon ("8 Femmes")is coming out, but you must read the book first. I plan to read it again before I see the film.

Not Quite an Angel

I like this book because the protagonist is not really a very likeable person. But I certainly have a sympathy for her at the same time. She's an individualist and odd. Great!

A novel with a considerable cult following

The novel's heroine is described within as an exotic bloom from a cactus plant: the novel ANGEL itself might be described the same way. Its title heroine grows up spoiled and adored by her shopowning mother and mother's sister; indifferent to their ideas for her future (or indeed to just about anything else), Angel discovers her gift for fantastic fictions translates beautifully into the publishing world, where she becomes a bestselling author of contempibly popular potboilers. Angel accordingly re-invents herself as a glamorous author figure of the Elinor Glyn school, and we follow her through her successes, marriage, eventual popular neglect, and poverty. ANGEL is a cult favorite among many British novelists, including Hilary Mantel, but is only really transcendent when it allows Angel to strive (at the beginning and the end of her career) against difficult odds. The scene, for example, where she tells off her aunt for planning to make her a ladies' maid is enormously funny and satisfying. But when Angel is rich and successful Taylor seems too invested in scoring points of of her heroine, as if she, too, feared what Angel might do if not kept in her place.