The Virago Book of Wanderlust & Dreams

Book excerpt: In this haunting and unusual collection of writing about longings for flight, the yearnings are as varied as their dreamers. Some want to cross a desert or an ocean, some travel back into memory, some never leave home, some wait patiently for their life. Including writers as diverse as Zora Neale Hurston, Elizabeth von Arnim, Karen Blixen, Angela Carter, Elaine Dundy, Janet Frame, Jessie Kesson, Shena Mackay, Dorothy Parker, Bernice Rubens, Elizabeth Smart, Romaine Brooks and Harriet Wilson, this imaginative and far-reaching anthology is dedicated to women who have had the courage to say 'yes' to life, whether that means daring to go, or daring to stay. 'When you flirt with another, you are courting; when you flirt with life you are courting danger. I present here an essence of wanderlust and flights of fancy' - Lisa St Aubin de Teran