Tipping the velvet (Fiftieth anniversary edition)

'Intelligent, witty and stylish' INDEPEDENT'Everyone's appetites will be satisfied' ELLE MAGAZINE'Waters is an author to cherish' GUARDIANCelebrating five decades of the feminist publisher, each of the Five Gold Reads represents an iconic moment in Virago's history, from the 1970s to today. Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen . . . Sarah Waters's debut, a delicious reimagining of late-Victorian life, chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable.

Her fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler. When Kitty's career takes a glittering turn, Nan accompanies her to London as her dresser and secret lover, and, soon after after, dons trousers herself to join the act.

But this is only beginning of Nan's adventures, in a novel that follows her through heartbreak, recovery and steamy sexual education, and sees her finally finding friendship and true love in the most unexpected places. 'It's a rare pleasure to discover a writer as assured as Waters' SUNDAY TIMES'A first-class storyteller' EVENING STANDARD'Sarah Waters, quite simply, is one of our greatest writers' SUNDAY EXPRESS'Waters' persistent picking apart of class is fascinating' OBSERVER