Dalkey Archive Press first introduced readers to this bestkept secret of British literature with the hardback Collected Writings of Olive Moore in 1992. Spleen the best of the authors three novels tells the disturbing story of a woman who goes into selfimposed exile to an island off the coast of Italy after giving birth to a deformed child. Filled with selfreproach and guilt about her son and her life having yearned to give birth to something new and rare she blames herself for her sons deformity Ruth broods on what it means to be a woman natures oven for natures bun and the inequalities between the sexes. Filled with the colors and beauty of the Italian countryside and in a style similar to Virginia Woolfs Spleen challenges the assumption that women cant help but be tender and maternal that their heads are only everenlarging hearts. show more