The Snow Ball

When Anna is kissed by a mysterious stranger at a NYE masquerade ball, a dance of seduction begins. 'So original and refreshing.' Hilary Mantel 'Brilliantly seductive ... A witty, sexy, sophisticated treat.' Sarah Waters 'Superb ... Sheer artistic insolence.' Iris Murdoch 'A great novel ... A swirling, sumptuous, sensual feast.' Guardian London, New Year's Eve. Snow falls on a Georgian mansion, vibrating with the festivities of a masquerade ball within. Middle-aged divorcee Anna stands alone - until the clock chimes midnight and a mysterious figure kisses her on the mouth. Thus begins a dance of seduction charged by clandestine romances swirling around them, whipping the ball into an frenzy of operatic proportions - until the night climaxes, revealing unease beneath the glitter ... A scandalous sensation in 1964, Brigid Brophy's The Snow Ballis ripe to seduce a new generation of readers. 'I read it in one sitting ... Wonderful!' Claire-Louise Bennett 'A feminist remodelling of libertine fervour and passion.' Eley Williams 'One of the wittiest British writers of the past half century ... A comet in her day.' Terry Castle What Readers Are Saying: An ornate masterpiece. Sensual, wicked, clever; its dark heart glittering. So pleasurable and original and weird. Takes the heady, lusty, excitement that comes with new love and mingles it with the exuberance, decadence, and hedonism of NYE ... A short swirling treat. A perfect little masterpiece, an opera in paperback ... I was seduced and I hoped and I flinched and I laughed and I admired. The lovechild of Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf: trippy and fluid, existential and erotic, funny and witty: a hedonistic comedy of manners. I think I love this crazy little book .. Super sexy ... Made me hoot out loud with glee for the language and audacity. Oh man, this was a lot of fun. Such a strong sense of intelligence and wit behind every sentence.

Brigid Brophy (1929-1995) was a prize-winning British novelist, essayist, critic and political campaigner, championing gay marriage, pacifism, vegetarianism, prison reform and Public Lending Right. Her celebrated debut novel, Hackenfeller's Ape, was published in 1953. It was followed by many other acclaimed novels including The King of a Rainy Country, Flesh, The Finishing Touch, In Transit, and The Snow Ball (which Faber are reissuing with a new foreword by Eley Williams), as well as critical studies of Mozart, Aubrey Beardsley and Ronald Firbank, among other subjects. Brophy's marriage to art historian Michael Levey encompassed a thirteen-year relationship with Iris Murdoch. She died in 1995.