The Wrong Set: Selected Stories (Faber Editions) by Angus Wilson

Illicit queer crushes on a family picnic. A nightclub singer lecturing her Communist nephew. Drunken feuds at the seedy South Kensington Hotel's staff dance.

The eccentric spinsters tempting a little boy to grotesque acts. Welcome to the singular world of Angus Wilson. An overlooked legend of the post-war queer landscape, he casts a waspish, tragicomic yet oddly tender eye across mid-century England.

Jitterbugging, espresso bars, spivs, Angry Young Men, teddy boys, satanic masses in village living rooms: all of life is here in these beloved stories. Savage in their deadly anatomy of social class yet compassionate in their portrayal of misfit outsiders, these are mini Austenesque novels-of-(bad)-manners, seething with high-octane dialogue, baroque humour and macabre secrets.

Introduced by Margaret Drabble

'A thing to rejoice over' EVELYN WAUGH'A literary master' IAN MCEWAN'Wilson is like an agent, a brilliant snooper in some branch of intelligence, picking up his material from the scattered refugees of moral disorder' GUARDIAN

Format:Paperback / softback 160 pages
Publisher:Faber & Faber
Imprint:Faber & Faber
Edition:Main
ISBN:9780571404766
Published:5 Nov 2026
Classifications:Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Classic fiction (pre c 1945), Short stories