Rediscover the brilliance of Down Among the Women in the Mermaid Collection – timeless classics by pioneering female authors, beautifully reissued to enchant today’s readers.

A classic from beloved national treasure Fay Weldon tells the story of four women breaking free from patriarchy and domesticity in 1950s London, from the author of The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil.

With a foreword by Jenny Colgan, the story unfolds through the perspective of Wanda, a former radical who raised her daughter Scarlet to be as liberated as she is. Yet, twenty-year-old Scarlet is about to discover true liberation – as a single mother in Fifties London.

Scarlet is not alone. Meet her friends: Sylvia, the innate victim; respectable Jocelyn, willingly trapped in a dull, bourgeois marriage; Audrey, eager to break free from her conventional life; and Helen, beautiful, lively – and very doomed.

Over twenty years, from the Fifties to the Seventies, Scarlet, Wanda, and their friends will wonder if they can ever become the women they always dreamed of being.

Praise for Fay Weldon:

• ‘A national treasure’ - Literary Review
• ‘Wickedly stylish. Bursting with intelligence and fire’ - Daily Telegraph
• ‘Prolific and provocative, Weldon shines brightest in the league table of British women novelists’ - Time Out
• ‘A queen of words’ - Caitlin Moran

Pages: 256, Dimensions: 12.8x12.8cm