NYRB Classics discussion

You'll Enjoy It When You Get There: The Selected Stories of Elizabeth Taylor



Publication Date: September 23, 2014
Pages: 428
Selected and with an introduction by Margaret Drabble.

Elizabeth Taylor is finally beginning to gain the recognition due to her as one of the best English writers of the postwar period, prized and praised by Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel, among others. Inheriting Ivy Compton-Burnett’s uncanny sensitivity to the terrifying undercurrents that swirl beneath the apparent calm of respectable family life while showing a deep sympathy of her own for human loneliness, Taylor depicted dislocation with the unflinching presence of mind of Graham Greene. But for Taylor, unlike Greene, dislocation began not in distant climes but right at home. It is in the living room, playroom, and bedroom that Taylor stages her unforgettable dramas of alienation and impossible desire.

Taylor’s stories, many of which originally appeared in The New Yorker, are her central achievement. Here are self-improving spinsters and gossiping girls, war orphans and wallflowers, honeymooners and barmaids, mistresses and murderers. Margaret Drabble’s new selection reveals a writer whose wide sympathies and restless curiosity are matched by a steely penetration into the human heart and mind.

Contents:
From Hester Lilly (1954)
-Hester Lilly
-Gravement Endommagé
-The Idea of Age
-Shadows of the World
-Oasis of Gaiety
-Plenty of Good Fiesta

From The Blush (1958)
-The Blush
-The Letter-writers
-A Troubled State of Mind
-The Rose, the Mauve, the White
-Summer Schools
-Perhaps a Family Failing
-You'll Enjoy It When You Get There

From A Dedicated Man (1965)
-Girl Reading
-The Thames Spread Out
-The Prerogative of Love
-The Benefactress
-In the Sun
-Vron and Willie
-The Voices

From The Devastating Boys (1972)
-The Devastating Boys
-Tall Boy
-In and Out the Houses
-Flesh
-Sisters
-Hôtel du Commerce
-Miss A. and Miss M.
-The Fly-paper

Published in Dangerous Calm: The Selected Stories of Elizabeth Taylor (1995)
-Violet House at the Fleece

Another favourite.

Ahh, I really liked the initial/filler cover for this book, which was this:



However, the cover has changed, and is now posted in the top post.

A slight push back from August 12 to September 16.

Pushed back one more week to September 23.

My copy arrived today. I've updated the top post to include the contents.