KATE PULLINGER

Based on the Lucie Duff Gordon's 'Letters from Egypt', this is a lushly evocative period novel.

Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London. But when her debilitating tuberculosis means exile, she and her devoted lady''s maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes, with a mixture of wonder and trepidation, the odd menage marshalled by the resourceful Omar, which travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. When Lady Duff Gordon undoes her stays and takes to native dress, throwing herself into weekly salons; language lessons; excursions to the tombs; Sally too adapts to a new world, affording her heady and heartfelt freedoms never known before. But freedom is a luxury that a maid can ill-afford, and when Sally grasps more than her status entitles her to, she is brutally reminded that she is mistress of nothing.

''As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world'' Virginia Woolf Our world has been conjured by the talented writers collected here. These wonderful and evocative stories have a truly international flavour, taking us from icy Alaska to the burnt outback of Australia, and include tales of murder, loss of innocence, revenge, heroism and hope. This vibrant collection contains new stories by Helen Dunmore, Trezza Azzopardi, Helen Simpson, Louise Doughty, Marina Warner and Lynne Truss plus twelve stories from the unpublished writers who were shortlisted for the Asham Short-Story Prize 2005. Asham House in Sussex was once home to Virginia and Leonard Woolf and is the inspiration behind the Asham Award. Launched in 1996 to support and encourage new writers, it is Britain''s only prize for short stories by women.