The Oxford Book of English Love Stories

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Adulterous love, marital love, virginal love, religious devotion, agape, lust, eros: there are an infinite variety of meanings that can be packed into the four letters that spell love, and writers of fiction have been trying for centuries to plumb its depths. We turn to literature in large part to learn what love is and what it should be. Here, The Oxford Book of English Love Stories, offers consolation and inspiration in equal measure from some of the sharpest observers of this most essential human emotion. From the bittersweet ending of Trollope's "The Parson's Daughter of Oxney Colne;" to the intricate rituals of courtship in Sylvia Plath's "Stone Boy with Dolphin;" to Paul Theroux's sardonic study of innocence in "An English Unofficial Rose," this collection is a looking glass into the many moods of love. John Sutherland has selected twenty-eight original works that best represent the rich and varied nature of love. There are stories by Mary Shelley, W. M. Thackeray, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, and many others. The Oxford Book of English Love Stories brings a delightful perspective to the mysteries of love.

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John Sutherland is Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. Among his publications are biographies of Mrs Humphry Ward and The Life of Walter Scott: A Critical Biography, Is Heathcliff a Murderer?, Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?, and Reading the Decades, as well as editions of novels by Anthony Trollope, W. M. Thackeray and others for the Oxford World's Classics series.