Virago Press

Books in the Media

Desert Flower

by Waris Dirie

Work has begun on the film adaptation of Desert Flower ...more

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Staff picks

The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton

'I'd never really had a favourite book until I read The House of Mirth, and although I first came across it over 20 years ago I do re-read every few years to remind myself how absolutely fantastic, well written and subtle it is and how cleverly it makes its social comment. And it never disappoints as each time a new gem of delight surfaces as truly it is a book that's rich with treasures and which offers them up one at a time exactly when you're ready to appreciate them. And of course the glittering Lily Bart's brief flowering, and inexorable tragic downfall, always has me on the edge of my seat hoping that perhaps, this one last time, it's all going to end differently. But it never does, although I can't quite stop hoping, as somehow there seems to be a little of Lily in all of us. And at some point I know I'll return again, just in case...'

Jenny Parrott, Editorial Director, Little, Brown & Abacus

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Meet Virago Authors

Author of the Month

Poppy Adams

Author of the startling debut and Radio 4 Book at Bedtime The Behaviour of Moths

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photograph: Asne Seierstad

photograph: Poppy Adams

Virago Modern Classics Are Thirty

VMC 30 brochure 2008 is the 30th anniversary of the Virago Modern Classics. To celebrate this occasion, we’ve produced a stunning set of eight hardbacks, featuring cover artwork by twentieth-century women textile designers, including Lucienne Day, Cath Kidston, Orla Kiely, Celia Birtwell, and founder of Biba, Barbara Hulanicki. This stylish collection, celebrating literature and art by women in the twentieth century even featured in last week’s Sunday Times style barometer (going up, of course).