Ursula Orange

Of all the unhappiness my divorce has brought upon me, loneliness has never been in the least a part. Lack of company in the evening is to me an absolute luxury. Thus does Vicky, a young divorcEe in London with a small daughter to support, reassure herself. But as the plucky courage of the early days of World War II gives way to the fatigue and deprivations of its middle, company in the evening is just what she gets. To the chagrin of her housekeeper, Vicky agrees to take in a pregnant, widowed sister-in-law ("Talking to her is like walking through a bog--squash, squash, squash--never, just never do you really crunch on to anything solid"). As she is adapting to this change and the tensions it creates, and dealing with an impossible client at work at a literary agency, she happens to meet ex-husband Raymond one night ... Told in a first-person confessional style ahead of its time, and featuring Ursula Orange's trademark humour, Company in the Evening is a charming evocation of wartime life, snobbishness in many forms, and the difficulties of being a woman on her own. "Delightfully entertaining ... good portraits add considerably to its attractiveness. Light reading of the most enjoyable kind." Sunday Times "Brilliant portraiture. Crisp writing. Human understanding. Really excellent light reading." Sunday Graphic

Company in the Evening

Oxford, it appeared, if it did not seem to have fitted her for any precise occupation, had at least unfitted her for a great many things. In her charming and incisive debut novel, Ursula Orange focuses her sharp eye on four young women only recently down from Oxford. Jane and Florence live in London, working at office jobs, the latter channelling her excess energy into a dreadfully earnest novel of her own. Sylvia remains at home, shocking her family with theories of sexual and social liberation. And Leslie, as the novel opens, idealizes the other three, as she tries to convince her mother to let her use her small nest egg to attend art school in London. As the four friends balance their youthful ideals with the realities of work and romance in 1930s England, Orange offers hilarious and thoughtful perspectives on the quandaries of educated, ambitious women in a world not yet ready for them. This new edition includes an introduction by Stacy Marking. "a charming and deftly written book" Sunday Times "The fresh quality and genuine youthfulness of this story are as charming in fiction as in life." Times Literary Supplement "an unusually good first novel, in a decade of unusually good first novels." Daily Telegraph

Begin Again

"Is Florence looking after the house all right? I thought it was rather touching of her to say she would like to stay and be bombed with you. Mind you put her underneath when you're lying down flat in an air-raid." Caroline Cameron is charming and witty, no doubt--but also superficial, and a bit immoral. When we first meet her, at the beginning of Ursula Orange's delightful novel of the early days of World War II, married Caroline is contemplating an affair with an actor. But then war intervenes, and Caroline and her young daughter evacuate to the quiet village of Chesterford to stay with school-friend Constance Smith. The two women couldn't be more different. Warm-hearted, generous Constance surprises the local billeting officer with her delight at welcoming evacuees into her home. But she has also made a catastrophic marriage to salesman Alfred. As they weather the storm of blackouts, shelters, and village drama, it's ultimately the women's differences that allow them to bring out the best in each other and let peace (of a sort) reign again. Tom Tiddler's Ground is a rollicking, irresistible tale of troubles on the Home Front. This new edition features an introduction by Stacy Marking. "Miss Orange's very considerable gifts have all been requisitioned to make this a book not only of first-rate entertainment, but of literary excellence in its special light comedy genre." New York Times "The whole story is a sparkling piece of fun." Daily Telegraph

Ursula Orange

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