Elizabeth Smart s passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker, described by Angela Carter as Like MADAME BOVARY blasted by lightning A masterpiece .

One day, while browsing in a London bookshop, Elizabeth Smart chanced upon a slim volume of poetry by George Barker and fell passionately in love with him through the printed word. Eventually they communicated directly and, as a result of Barker s impecunious circumstances, Elizabeth Smart flew both him and his wife from Japan, where he was teaching, to join her in the United States. Thus began one of...