From forthright mothers and very modern daughters to the quiet dreamers on either side of the generational divide, this anthology sketches a joyous, fraught, and ultimately tender portrait of mother-daughter relationships throughout the twentieth century. These are the stories of a mother who helps dispatch her daughter's unwanted suitor, a daughter who enters a sanatorium and starts to question if her mother really wants her to get better, and the glorious chaos that descends on a woman's quiet country cottage when her daughters return home for a weekend.

Across the decades, women writers return to perpetual teenage daughters that rebel against the spectre of maternal tradition and mothers who start to see their own mothers' shadows on the wall. Brought together in this collection is a moving testament to the inextricable and ineffable bond between mothers and daughters, in all its lovely and imperfect forms.

This new anthology brings together the creative minds of:

Richmal Crompton
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Jeanette Winterson
Jamaica Kincaid
A.S. Byatt
Inez Holden
Winifred Holtby
Janet Frame
E.M. Delafield
Tillie Olsen

'Changing expectations of motherhood and new freedoms won by feminism permeate these stylish short stories from celebrated literary women.' SMH/The Age, Fiction Pick of the week