Two Serious Ladies

'I am going on a trip. Wait until I tell you about it. it's terrible.'

Miss Goering, an eccentric, impulsive New York heiress, resides in her house and tries not to be unhappy.

Mrs Copperfield, an anxious, dutiful married woman, has a great fear of drowning, of lifts, of intruders in the night.

Two serious ladies, nothing is natural for them and anything is possible.

For Mrs Copperfield - a trip to Panama, where she abandons her husband for love of a local prostitute. For Miss Goering - a move to a squalid little house on an island and a series of sordid encounters with strangers. Both go to pieces -and both realise this is something they've wanted to do for years.

With an introduction by Naoise Dolan
A W&N Essential

About the Author

Jane Bowles has long had an underground reputation as one of the truly original writers of the twentieth century. Born in New York City in 1917, she lived in Tangier, Morocco, with her husband, Paul Bowles, from 1952 until her death in 1973. Though she wrote only one novel, one short play, and fewer than a dozen short stories over a roughly twenty-year span from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s, Jane Bowles has long been regarded by critics as one of the premier stylists of her generation.