‘In a way it’s easier to do a short thing, all in one flight that a novel. Novels are frightfully clumsy and overpowering of course; still if one could only get hold of them it would be superb. I daresay one ought to invent a completely new form.’ Virginia Woolf.

It has been one hundred years since the first publication from Hogarth Press. To mark the centenary, ‘Two Stories’ includes Virginia Woolf’s original story ‘The Mark on the Wall’ and a newly commissioned story by Mark Haddon, ‘St Brides Bay’.

‘Two Stories’ also features a fascinating introduction about the history of Hogarth Press. Virginia Woolf, along with her husband Leonard, started the press in their dining room in Richmond. ‘Nowhere else could we have started the Hogarth Press,’ Virginia wrote as they left for Bloomsbury in 1924. She enjoyed the freedom of having her own press and described it as ‘the greatest mercy to be able to do what one likes – no editors, or publishers, and only people to read who more or less like that sort of thing.’ What would Virginia Woolf have made of blogging, I wonder?

The stories are fantastic, of course. I’m not going to write any spoilers, but I know you won’t regret buying this duo of stories. Virginia Woolf followed by Mark Haddon! It’s as wonderful as it sounds.

And it makes an ideal companion for summer day trips to slip into your travel bag for a quick spot of reading on the train/plane.

★★★★★