The Camberwell Beauty
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
In the cluttered back rooms and dusty shop fronts of the antiques trade, desire, deception, and obsession simmer beneath a veneer of civility — this is the world V. S. Pritchett conjures in The Camberwell Beauty, a masterful collection of short stories that chronicles the quiet dramas of ordinary English life with piercing psychological acuity. The title story follows the murky world of antique dealers, where a young man's fascination with a beautiful woman owned, it seems, by another man uncovers the possessive and predatory currents that run beneath polite society. Pritchett, long regarded as one of the supreme practitioners of the English short story, writes with a deceptively light touch that conceals an almost ruthless understanding of human frailty, longing, and self-deception. His prose is economical yet richly textured, capable of illuminating an entire character in a single, perfectly weighted sentence. This collection stands as a testament to his gifts — a writer who, as Frank O'Connor once argued, captured the lives of the lonely and the dispossessed with unmatched compassion. For those who have yet to encounter Pritchett at the height of his powers, The Camberwell Beauty is an irresistible introduction.
Author: V. S. Pritchett
Format: Hardback
Published: 1975, Chatto & Windus
Genre: Fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
In the cluttered back rooms and dusty shop fronts of the antiques trade, desire, deception, and obsession simmer beneath a veneer of civility — this is the world V. S. Pritchett conjures in The Camberwell Beauty, a masterful collection of short stories that chronicles the quiet dramas of ordinary English life with piercing psychological acuity. The title story follows the murky world of antique dealers, where a young man's fascination with a beautiful woman owned, it seems, by another man uncovers the possessive and predatory currents that run beneath polite society. Pritchett, long regarded as one of the supreme practitioners of the English short story, writes with a deceptively light touch that conceals an almost ruthless understanding of human frailty, longing, and self-deception. His prose is economical yet richly textured, capable of illuminating an entire character in a single, perfectly weighted sentence. This collection stands as a testament to his gifts — a writer who, as Frank O'Connor once argued, captured the lives of the lonely and the dispossessed with unmatched compassion. For those who have yet to encounter Pritchett at the height of his powers, The Camberwell Beauty is an irresistible introduction.