Naturally, we’re suckers for beautiful books here at Illustries, so when we first spotted these gorgeous editions of Virago Classics we were smitten. With covers by leading textile designers cuddling all those beautiful words penned by the likes of E M Forster (A Passage to India is sitting on Emma’s coffee table, swathed in its juicy pink paisley jacket just waiting for a quiet moment and a Chai Latte), there’s no better excuse to settle down and lose yourself.
My personal favourite from the collection is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Because my little sister is a Rebecca, and although the first Mrs De Winter is decadent, crazed and cruel, it always makes me think of my Rebecca (although I guess there are similarities!). Can you read this without imaging a lazy day at Manderley?
“I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a little while it would be different, there would come tomorrow, and the next day and another year. And we would be changed perhaps, never sitting qite like this again. Some of us would go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched away in front of us, unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we planned. This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not at all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time he would never remember, never think about again…For them it was just after lunch, quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any day. They did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I did. They were not afraid.”
Rebecca, by Daphne de Maurier
Emma
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