The Clothes They Stood Up In [Paperback]

First published in the London Review of Books in 1996, TheClothes They Stood Up In takes the reader into familiar Bennett territory. Maurice and Rosemary Ransome are a typically dissatisfied, middle-aged, middle-class couple, childless and emotionally withdrawn. "They had no children and but for Mozart would probably have split up years ago. Mr Ransome always took a bath when he came home from work and then he had his supper. After supper he took another bath, this time in Mozart". However, one night, after returning from a performance of Cosi fanTutte, bath, supper, Mozart and everything disappeared. "There is a limit to what burglars can take: they seldom take easy chairs, for example, and even more seldom settees. These burglars did. They took everything".

What unfolds is a brilliant account of the ways in which the lives of the Ransomes are subtly but profoundly changed forever, as Rosemary discovers the joys of shopping at the local Pakistani shop and the limits of counselling, and Maurice fantasises about new CD equipment with which to listen to Mozart. However, just as life begins to return to normal, a letter arrives which throws new light on the Ransome's extraordinary burglary. Beautifully observed and written with a masterly economy of style, Bennett's story packs an enormous amount into just over 100 pages, and has not one but two delicious stings in its tail. --Jerry Brotton

"'Welcome to the wonderful world of Alan Bennett, deliciously enriched by the voice of the master himself'. (The Sunday Times)" --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The Clothes They Stood Up In is Alan Bennett's first story. Like Charles Dickens' novels which were first published in magazines, it originally appeared in the London Review of Books - which the author says 'seems to me (and not just because I occasionally contribute to it) the liveliest, most serious and also the most radical literary periodical we have'.

Alan Bennett's many stage and television plays and his prose collection, Writing Home, have made him one of Britain's best-loved authors. He has a huge international reputation for his plays and films which include: Habeus Corpus, Kafka's Dick, Private Function, The Madness of George III and many others †often multi-prize winning. But it is his fiction (The Clothes They Stood Up In