Angel (Virago Modern Classics)

Writing stories that are extravagant and fanciful, fifteen-year old Angel retreats to a world of romance, escaping the drabness of provincial life. She knows she is different, that she is destined to become a feted authoress, owner of great riches and of Paradise House . . . After reading The Lady Irania, publishers Brace and Gilchrist are certain the novel will be a success, in spite of - and perhaps because of - its overblown style.

But they are curious as to who could have written such a book: ''Some old lady, romanticising behind lace-curtains'' . . . ''Angelica Deverell is too good a name to be true . . . she might be an old man. It would be an amusing variation. You are expecting to meet Mary Anne Evans and in Walks George Eliot twirling his moustache.'' So nothing can prepare them for the pale young woman who sits before them, with not a seed of irony or a grain of humour in her soul.