Sophia West died in 1996, aged 30, cutting short the career of a prodigious talent and a politically active lesbian. In this volume of poems and fragmentary prose, biographical history informs an introduction by her mother, Olivia Emmett. As the granddaughter of Rebecca West and HG Wells, the author's literary skills can be expected while much can also be made of her mother's family of Anglo Irish aristocrats and revolutionaries. Academics and literary historians will want this book, but this is real poetry - love poems and short prose stories that glisten with skill.