'On this Sunday morning in May, this girl who was later to be the cause of a sensation in New York awoke much too early for her night before'... This particular morning Gloria finds herself alone in a stranger's apartment with nothing but a torn evening dress and her stockings and panties. When she takes a fur coat from the wardrobe to wear home, she sets in train a series of events that will lead to tragedy.

A bestseller on its first publication,BUtterfield 8is the glittering story of a 1930s glamour girl whose ill-starred entanglement with a respectable married man is set against a backdrop of Manhattan bars and bedrooms.

John O'Hara was born in Pennsylvania on 31 January 1905. His first novel,Appointment in Samarra(1934), won him instant acclaim, and quickly came to be regarded as one of the most prominent writers in America. He won the National Book Award for his novelTen North Frederickand had more stories published in the New Yorker than anyone in the history of the magazine. His fourteen novels includeA Rage to Live,Pal Joey,BUtterfield 8andFrom the Terrace. John O'Hara died on 11 April 1970.

'The real F. Scott Fitzgerald' Fran Lebowitz