The news that Ferndale Manor is to be opened again and that its owner, Mr Mainwaring, is both wealthy, handsome and single, could hardly be more exciting for the town of Granby. All except for Elizabeth Rossiter, born a lady but forced to work as a governess, and who now wishes to be left alone.
In tThe apparently provocative title is merely a convenient abridgement of 'Sexuality, Homosexuality, and Bawdiness in the Works of William Shakespeare'.
If Shakespearean criticism had not so largely been in the hands of academics and cranks, a study of Shakespeare's attitude towards sex and his use of the broad jest would probably have appeared at any time since 1918. The academic critics (except Professors Dover Wilson and G. Wilson Knight) have, in the main and for most of the time, ignored the questions of homosexuality, sex, bawdiness.
Here is what the good Doctor has to say about the selection "I must admit the title of this book gives me pause. Who says the enclosed stories are my `best'? Do I? Does the editor? Or some critic? Some reader? A general vote among the entire population of the world? And whoever says it can it be so? Can the word 'best' mean anything at all, except to some particular person in some particular mood? ... So I'll be honest with all of you. What is included here in this book are a dozen stories chosen in such a way as to span a third of a century of writing ...
Someone in 6B is a witch. And, in the alternate reality described in Diana Wynne Jones's Witch Week, that's not at all a good thing to be. Jones plunks her readers directly into the life of Larwood House, a school in a present-day England that's a lot like the world we know, except for one major difference: witches are everywhere, and they are ruthlessly hunted by inquisitors.
Falling instantly in love and marrying Madeleine, overworked lawyer Quentin believes his life is perfect except for his cantankerous in-laws, who participate in vicious infighting beyond his worst suspicions.
