Elizabeth Jane Howard Books in Order

A young girl's visit to the Lancings' country estate opens possibilities absent from her ordinary London life. As the First World War transforms her world, memories of that formative stay shape her understanding of love, loss, and growing independence.

Robert Aickman and Elizabeth Jane Howard contribute three unsettling ghost stories each to this collection. Howard's Three Miles Up, Left Luggage, and Perfect Love appear alongside Aickman's tales, combining recognizable modern settings with psychological unease and the unexplained.

Moving backward from 1950 to 1926, this novel explores Antonia and Conrad Fleming's marriage through its accumulated tensions and earlier beginnings. Antonia's changing choices reveal the pressures, compromises, and personal desires beneath the outward shape of their shared life.

Playwright Emmanuel and his wife Lillian travel restlessly while carrying grief over their daughter's death. The arrival of Alberta, a secretary from an English vicarage, disrupts their discontented household and gradually changes the relationships within it.

Twenty years after Julius's wartime death, his widow, daughters, and an old lover remain shaped by his final actions. A troubled weekend in Sussex brings their memories and disappointments together, exposing the unresolved influence of a man long absent.

May's marriage to Colonel Herbert Brown-Lacy unsettles a blended family whose younger members seek escape and independence. As Oliver, Elizabeth, and Alice pursue relationships of their own, the household's growing tensions expose troubling differences between affection, security, and control.

Anna and Edmund Cornhill enjoy a settled marriage until wealthy, rootless Arabella comes to stay for the summer. Her longing for connection entangles all three in shifting attachments, destabilizing the couple's private world and their assumptions about contentment.

These short stories examine uneasy relationships in settings ranging from shared flats to family Christmas gatherings and a French house party. Domestic comedy gives way to uncanny disturbance in a collection that includes the supernatural tales Mr Wrong and Three Miles Up.

The Cazalet brothers gather with their wives and children at their parents' Sussex home in 1937. Beneath summer routines lie unhappy marriages, frustrated ambitions, and memories of the previous war, while another European conflict threatens the family's sheltered world.

The Cazalets gather at Home Place for safety as war approaches in 1939. Louise, Polly, and Clary face changing ambitions and family anxieties, discovering the limits of childhood security as conflict reshapes their futures and their understanding of their parents.

By 1942, war divides the Cazalets between London and Sussex while the younger generation confronts adult responsibilities. Louise considers the security of marriage, Polly faces bereavement, and Clary clings to hope about her missing father amid continuing uncertainty.

As war ends, the adult Cazalet cousins must rebuild their lives and reconsider their relationships with their parents. Louise, Polly, and Clary face difficult romantic choices, while the older generation confronts decisions that will shape the family's peacetime future.

At thirty-one, shy West End hairdresser Gavin worries that life and relationships are passing him by. A penthouse party introduces him to unfamiliar people, beginning a fortnight of comic upheaval that challenges his sheltered habits and hesitant expectations.

Edited by Howard, this anthology gathers excerpts from novels, stories, letters, and poems about married life. Selections organized around proposals, daily routines, loss, and difficult or rewarding experiences present varied literary perspectives on the institution's emotional possibilities.

Self-sufficient Daisy remains wary of trust after an unhappy past, yet still longs to be cared for. A charming man's carefully sustained attentions exploit that vulnerability, creating a troubling portrait of romantic manipulation and the desire to believe in love.

Howard reflects on her upbringing, brief careers in acting and modeling, and emergence as a novelist. Her memoir examines turbulent marriages, including her relationship with Kingsley Amis, alongside literary friendships and the challenge of sustaining an independent creative life.

Four supernatural stories combine familiar settings with disquieting encounters and uncertain realities. The collection includes Three Miles Up, Perfect Love, Left Luggage, and Mr Wrong, exploring alienation and hidden disturbance through Howard's unusual excursions into ghost fiction.

An arts festival brings a disparate group together in a West Country town during the late 1960s. A divorced millionaire, a garden designer, and relatives coping with bereavement form new connections that reshape their understanding of affection and loneliness.

In the 1950s, the Cazalets confront the disappearance of the world in which their family flourished. The younger generation balances marriage, parenthood, and ambition, while older relatives face independence, changing expectations, and an uncertain future at Home Place.

Freddie Whitemouse dislikes being small and timid and wishes he could live as a tiger or a beloved dog. A sorcerer toad offers a week in each form, allowing Freddie to discover what other lives might really involve.