The Collected Novels Volume One

Two compelling works of fiction from a feminist literary icon hailed as “Virginia Woolf without the evasive prettifying” (The New York Times).

Chamber Music: Caroline Maclaren, the widow of a prominent composer, is finally going to tell her own life story. Taking pen to paper, she relives her sheltered youth, her chilly marriage to a brilliant man, and the melancholy solitude she experienced until she found loving companionship with her ill husband’s caretaker, Anna. This masterful tale of passion late in life is widely considered Grumbach’s finest work.
 
The Ladies: In 1778, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby left Ireland to live together in Wales as a married couple. Well-born and highly educated, the Ladies of Llangollen—as they came to be known—defied social convention, spending half a century in a devoted relationship. In this fictionalized account, Grumbach breathes vivid life into this fascinating story that is “a true classic on that rarest of relationships, companions of the heart” (San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle).
 
A truly groundbreaking talent whose writing “depicts lesbianism as a positive, life-giving force in women’s lives,” Doris Grumbach’s words continue to move the hearts and minds of a new generation of readers (Ann Cothran).