The Native Heath

A widow, at an age when birthdays are best forgotten, with no children to occupy her mind, can be very lonely. Julia Dunstan knew she was more fortunate than most widows, not merely because she was prosperous-as widows go-but because she had always taken an interest in other people. And from the moment Julia moves to Goatstock, where she has inherited a house, there are plenty of people for her to take an interest in. For a start, there's cousin Dora, who might just as easily been left the house herself and who instead becomes Julia's companion. Then there's Lady Finch, the local expert on Fresh Food and the victim of a deception so dastardly that even her attractive but irreverent niece, Harriet, is indignant. This distracts Harriet for a while from the rather thankless task of planning the futures of her friends, Marian and Robert. And all are concerned with news that the village will be made into a "New Town". However the old values, at least those of Elizabeth Fair's fiction, remain: wit, charm, and romance. Furrowed Middlebrow is delighted to make available, for the first time in over half a century, all six of Elizabeth Fair's irresistible comedies of domestic life. These new editions all feature an introduction by Elizabeth Crawford. "Where she breaks with the Thirkell school is in her total absence of sentimentality and her detached and witty observation of her characters."--The Sphere "Miss Fair makes writing look very easy, and that is the measure of her creative ability."--Compton Mackenzie