‘Street Haunting’ describes “…the greatest pleasure of town life in winter – rambling the streets of London.” A cascade of brief impressions encapsulates the people and places Woolf visited on her frequent walks through the capital, and gives an enchanting picture of London in the 1920s.

Stanley Middleton’s equally evocative yet very different pieces describe the suburb of Bulwell as it was in his youth. Although part of Nottingham, Bulwell and its people have always maintained a distinct identity, which is captured in his essay, ‘Bulwell’, and poem, ‘A Name Loosely Attached’.

Virginia Woolf, one of the foremost modernists of the 20th century, was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group. Her novels include Mrs Dalloway and To The Lighthouse. Stanley Middleton was a Nottingham-based author who published 44 novels. His novel Holiday won the 1974 Booker Prize, and he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998.