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  • Published: 27 November 2014
  • ISBN: 9781446499955
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

Four Bare Legs In a Bed




'Stories told in such succulent prose that you wince at their brevity... a most exceptional debut' - Evening Standard

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award.

Brilliant, funny and tragic, Four Bare Legs in a Bed is an outstanding and invigorating collection of short stories. In Simpson's singular and opulent voice, we hear of the mixed blessings of independence and marriage, of sex and babies. From a bed that transforms the lives of a struggling couple to a chorus of midwives telling the dramatic story of a birth, this is a playful, unique set of stories to treasure.

  • Published: 27 November 2014
  • ISBN: 9781446499955
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 192

About the author

Helen Simpson

Helen Simpson's sixth short-story collection, Cockfosters, follows Four Bare Legs in a Bed (1990), Dear George (1995), Hey Yeah Right Get a Life (2000), Constitutional (2005) and In-Flight Entertainment (2010). A Bunch of Fives: Selected Stories (2012) includes five stories from each of her first five collections. She has received the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the E.M.Forster Award. She lives in London.

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Praise for Four Bare Legs In a Bed

The most sensuous writer in the land

Fay Weldon

These stories of sex pack a truly original pungency... kicking off belly-laughs or melting you with an apt phrase, Simpson makes a delectable debut

Mail on Sunday

She can be sparingly tragic and unsparingly funny... A unique writer

Ruth Rendell

Outstanding... You should read her

The Times

Dazzlingly original... Simpson's black-hearted humour is something to relish

Sunday Times

Absolutely brilliant... the only book this year that's made me sick with envy

Julie Burchill