angela carter

    English Heritage has commemorated the legacy of award winning novelist Angela Carter with a blue plaque at her former home in Clapham.   It was at this house, 107, The Chase, that Carter spent the last sixteen years of her life. She often tutored her then student, Kazuo Ishiguro, at the kitchen table […]

  As part of our Virago Modern Classics 40th anniversary celebrations, the Virago team have each chosen a favourite title from the #VMC40 series. Each month, we will introduce the book and share with you why we love it. This July our #VMC40 book of the month is The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter. The Magic Toyshop […]

  Book of the Month: The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter Our Book of the month this July is Angela Carter’s brilliant The Magic Toyshop. One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother’s wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the home of her childhood, she is sent to live […]

Looking for a spooky story to get you in the mood for All Hallow’s Eve? Here are just a few suggestions in our Halloween reading list.   Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier With one of the most famous first lines in literature, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca has all of the elements that make for a chilling tale, […]

In this exclusive piece, Angela Carter biographer and academic Edmund Gordon explains what it is that makes The Magic Toyshop truly magical to him. The Magic Toyshop is Angela Carter’s second novel, but the first to feature the heady surrealism that flavours all her greatest work. Zinging with lovely sentences and rich, uncanny images, it […]