Description

With an introduction by Helen Simpson. From familiar fairy tales and legends – Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves – Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

Publisher Review

The Bloody Chamber is such an important book to me. Angela Carter, for me, is still the one who said: 'You see these fairy stories, these things that are sitting at the back of the nursery shelves? Actually, each one of them is a loaded gun. Each of them is a bomb. Watch: if you turn it right it will blow up.' And we all went: 'Oh my gosh, she's right-you can blow things up with these!' -- Neil Gaiman * Daily Telegraph * She can glide from ancient to modern, from darkness to luminosity, from depravity to comedy without any hint of strain and without losing the elusive power of the original tales * The Times * Magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality -- Ian McEwan She was, among other things, a quirky, original, and baroque stylist, a trait especially marked in The Bloody Chamber - her vocabulary a mix of finely tuned phrase, luscious adjective, witty aphorism, and hearty, up-theirs vulgarity -- Margaret Atwood * Observer * Fairy tales reimagined for feminist times * Grazia *