A brief survey of the short story: Elizabeth Taylor

Her work may be set in a world of dated manners, but its hard insights into social vanity and anxiety speak all too clearly to our own

If it wasn’t for Paul Theroux, I might never have got around to reading Elizabeth Taylor. In the face of a succession of articles that praise her, and bemoan the fact she is ignored, I continued to ignore her. But when I heard Theroux reading her 1958 story The Letter Writers, I suddenly knew I was missing out.

The Letter Writers takes place in an English coastal village where Emily, a middle-aged spinster, is nervously preparing for the visit of a man called Edmund, a writer she has been corresponding with for a decade. They have become close without meeting – although Emily did once stand outside his apartment in Rome without having the courage to announce herself.

Over her bare arms the warm air flowed, her skirt seemed to divide as she walked, pressed in a hollow between her legs, like drapery on a statue.

[Jane] was hard, he thought – unlike [Barbara], whom he found rather girlish and sentimental. He was not greatly drawn to either of them; but they had been part of his holiday and because of that he must feel disturbed at saying good-bye to them.

‘What a pretty frock, Frances,’ Myra said, beginning with the worst. ‘Poor pet,’ she thought, and Frances guessed the thought, smiling primly and saying thank you.

The fact would increase their air of dependability and give them background and reality and solid worth. The boy was at a public school, he went on, and did not divulge to his friends the name of his parents’ profession. Silcox, Edith realised with respect, was so snobbish that he looked down upon himself.

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