Elizabeth Smart's passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker described by Angela Carter as Like MADAME BOVARY blasted by lightning A masterpiece' One day while browsing in a London bookshop Elizabeth Smart chanced upon a slim volume of poetry by George Barker
- & fell passionately in love with him through the printed word Eventually they communicated directly & as a result of Barker's impecunious circumstances Elizabeth Smart flew both him & his wife from Japan where he was teaching to join her in the United States Thus began one of the most extraordinary intense & ultimately tragic love affairs of our time They never married but Elizabeth bore George Barker four children & their relationship provided the impassioned inspiration for one of the most moving & immediate chronicles of a love affair ever written
- By Grand Central Station I Sat Down & Wept' Originally published in 1945 this remarkable book is now widely identified as a classic work of poetic prose which seven decades later has retained all of its searing poignancy beauty & power of impact