Cage Bird, and Other Stories

In this collection of thirteen short stories are settings as diverse as London, the Welsh Marches, Boulogne, Biarritz, Tunis, Egypt, Southern Africa and an ageing packet-steamer bound for Japan. There are early ideas destined for future development as a full-length novel (A Busman's Holiday and A Man About the House) and plots which are obviously based on the author's own experiences (Brett Young had spent time in Egypt a decade before the publication of Glamour, whilst his own voyage as a ship's doctor took him in the same direction that Chusan sailed). Within this anthology will be found amusing stories, tales of intrigue, adventure, escaped convicts and unlikely liaisons - some bound for success and others for failure. It is an entertaining collection by an author with a gift for telling a lively yarn, who could write as effectively of South Africa as of an English village, the Egyptian desert or a London street.