Aspidistra in Babylon

First published in 1960, this collection of four novellas continue Bates''s sensitive, often witty, explorations of unhappy love.

The title story, ''An Aspidistra in Babylon'', is a reminiscence of a girl''s loss of innocence. Christine, who describes herself at eighteen as ''dull as one of the aspidistras that cluttered up ... our little boarding house'' is seduced by the forty-year-old Captain B...