The Camberwell Beauty and Other Stories

The Camberwell Beauty and Other Stories

'People are always in a state of regret’ said V. S. Pritchett, and indeed, an air of melancholy, of wasted purpose and missed opportunities hangs like an English mist over many of his stories. In ‘A Trip to the Seaside’, a retired, widowed salesman visits his old secretary hoping to rekindle a romance, only to uncover uncomfortable truths about both the present and a past he has suppressed. In ‘Tea with Mrs Bittell’, an older, well-to-do woman condescends to invite a younger man ‘outside her own class’ to tea, spurred by their apparent mutual disappointments in life.

Pritchett skilfully evokes the tiny acts of courage, betrayal and deception that make up the petty tragedies of ordinary life. In his dense, many-layered tales, whole vistas exist just beyond the story’s confines; characters and plot linger in the mind long after the final page is turned. Hilda in ‘When My Girl Comes Home’ is feared dead in a Japanese POW camp. Only her mother keeps faith, and slaves to save money for her lost daughter. Hilda returns at last, well-groomed and sleek, talking of the man who will write a book of her life. Is she a fantasist? A whore, as other women whisper? Or a loving daughter desperate for a chance of freedom and happiness? In ‘The Camberwell Beauty’, the beautiful but damaged Isabel has married an elderly antiques dealer: ‘He likes to look at me. I am the most precious thing he has’. ‘That isn’t love,’ cries the narrator, but his own passion mirrors the antique dealer’s lust to possess another’s ‘treasure’.

Pritchett inspired generations of short-story writers, and William Trevor is one of many to acknowledge a debt. Trevor has personally selected and introduced 25 stories for this collection, taken from every stage in Pritchett’s luminous career.