The Vet's Daughter : A Virago Modern Classic

A small Gothic masterpiece . . . I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities' Sarah Waters

'A wonderful and original novel' Alan Hollinghurst

'The strange off-beat talent of Barbara Comyns [whose] innocent eye observes with child-like simplicity the most fantastic or the most ominous occurrence' Graham Greene

'Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else' Maggie O'Farrell

I comforted myself with the knowledge that at least I wasn't earthbound like most people.

In a house full of screeching animals in Edwardian South London, Alice lives in the shadow of her domineering father. Longing to escape, she retreats ever deeper into a world of memories, fantasies and rapturous longings – until she discovers an extraordinary secret power of her own.

But the strange events that unfold lead her, dressed in bridal white, to a scene of ecstatic triumph and disaster among the crowds on Clapham Common.

Blackly funny and indelibly haunting, The Vet's Daughter combines shocking realism with a visionary edge.

Introduced by Jane Gardam