Humphry Ward

John Fenwick is a portrait artist who gets a commission to paint the beautiful Eugenie de Pastourelles in London; his wife Phoebe wants to go with him, but he feels he needs his freedom to paint to his potential. He goes alone and, of course, falls in love with her (her husband has deserted her). Phoebe learns what's going on and, with their daughter, leaves Fenwick and goes to Canada. Complications arise after Eugenie's husband returns to the scene...

"The characters in the delightful stories collected here range all the way from the ink-stained medieval monks in Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose' to the book-besotted denizens of Ali Smith's 'Public Library and Other Stories.' In these pages readers are invited to enter the interior lives of librarians in Lorrie Moore's 'Community Life' and Elizabeth McCracken's 'Juliet' and are ushered into a host of unusual libraries, including the infinite...