The mermaids in the basement

"Noah's daughter-in-law and the Queen of Sheba; Susannah who was spied on by the Elders, and Ariadne castaway by Theseus and rescued by Bacchus; a 19th-century anorexic, and 20th-century Kate who, like Pharaoh's daughter, finds a baby in a basket; a fairytale princess and her beast—these are among the voices overheard in this first collection of stories by the author of *Indigo* and *The Lost Father.* "Reworking familiar folklore, legends and everyday preoccupations, inspired by famous images from paintings, Marina Warner crosses the boundaries of time and space to listen to the calling of different heroines and anti-heroines, finding them in places both imaginary and real—in Vietnam, London, Naxos, and the fens. These 'fantastic iconologies' are peopled with figures of popular imagination—babysnatchers, rapists, seducers, suicides and visionaries—and they illuminate common situations from a fresh, often intensely subjective angle. "Ranging from pain to hope, from cynicism or playful irony to exaltation, these stories draw on the past to speak to the present in imagery at once ancient and modern." —*From the book jacket*