Lydia Steptoe Stories

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. `I have quite changed my mind. I am going to run away and become a boy.` In these three stories, written by Djuna Barnes under the pseudonym Lydia Steptoe, three characters find themselves on the brink of a sexual awakening - accompanied by guns, whips, and worldly innuendo. A fourteen-year-old girl plans to become `a virago`, until her mother intercepts her first tryst by dressing up as her male lover. A boy of the same age is lured into the forest by his father`s mistress. A woman of forty falls in love and longs to kill herself, so unbearable is the return of the youth she thought she wanted. `Alice`, she tells herself, `be a man.` Barnes makes gender and desire seem slippery and joyful - and makes the fictional Lydia Steptoe seem like a writer for our time. Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.