Original Bliss

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 311, [1, blank]. Brown cloth, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket design by Tracey Winwood featuring a detail from Lucas Cranach the Elder's Venus and Cupid (c.1537).

Signed by Author to title page.

Author's third short story collection concerned with the complexities of sex or the lack of it. The eponymous long novella tells the story of an excruciatingly awkward courtship between two soul-sick people – the one brutally shy, the other an exhibitionist – searching for a way out of their self-imposed isolation. Selected for Granta's List of Best Young British Authors in both 1993 and 2003. Recipient of numerous awards, including the 2007 Costa Book of the Year Prize for her novel Day. "A darkly comic tale...[that] is hilariously funny about sexual obsession and brilliantly perceptive about the dynamics of human relationships." –The Baltimore Sun