Spleen (British Literature Series)

Olive Moore, who disappeared from the literary world at age 29 after writing four novels in five years, was first introduced by Dalkey Archive Press in her Collected Writings. Dalkey has separately published the best of those, Spleen, which tells the story of a woman in self-imposed exile in the Italian countryside after giving birth to a deformed child. Ruth blames herself for the deformity, yet broods on the socialization of the sexes and what it means for a woman to be merely "nature's oven for nature's bun." Moore's novel reads much like Virginia Woolf -- but with more bite.