The Oxford Book of English Love Stories

Love, so the song goes, is a many-splendoured thing. We turn to literature to learn what love is and what it should be, and readers of this collection will find consolation and inspiration in equal measure from some of the sharpest observers of this most essential human emotion. The twenty-eight stories chosen by John Sutherland reflect something of the infinite diversity of English love, with authors as varied as Sylvia Plath and Aphra Behn, Thomas Hardy and V. S. Pritchett, D. H. Lawrence and Adam Mars-Jones. Simple or sophisticated, sometimes comic and often very moving, these stories give a delightful perspective on the mysteries of the English in love.