The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, published in October 2006, is a collection of eight short stories by Susanna Clarke and illustrated by Charles Vess. The stories, which are sophisticated fairy tales, focus on the power of women; some are set in the same alternate history as Clarke's debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), in which magic has returned to England. The stories are written in a pastiche of 18th- and 19th-century styles and their tone is macabre as well as satirical. The volume was generally well-received, though some critics compared it unfavorably to Jonathan Strange.

Read more about The Ladies Of Grace Adieu And Other Stories:  Contents and Themes, Illustrations, Reception, Audio Book

Famous quotes containing the words ladies, grace, adieu and/or stories:

    At no time in history ... have the people who are not fit for society had such a glorious opportunity to pretend that society is not fit for them. Knowledge of the slums is at present a passport to society—so much the parlor philanthropists have achieved—and all they have to do is to prove that they know their subject. It is an odd qualification to have pitched on; but gentlemen and ladies are always credulous, especially if you tell them that they are not doing their duty.
    Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)

    Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
    You’ve played, and loved, and eat, and drunk your fill:
    Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age
    Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:
    Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
    Whom Folly pleases, and whose follies please.
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    Adieu Love, adieu Love, untrue Love,
    Unknown. The Unfaithful Shepherdess (l. 7)

    Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because—despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content—these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.
    Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)