The Soul of Kindness of the title is Flora Quatermaine – elegant, blonde and beautiful – who is celebrating her marriage to Richard as the novel opens.  One of the novel’s many other characters is Elinor Pringle, a bored housewife in the suburbs of London living in an empty marriage with Geoffrey, who works for the government. In the extract below, it’s a Sunday afternoon and Elinor goes to a cinema in the West End on her own to simply pass the time.

Elizabeth Taylor (1912-1975) is increasingly recognised as one of the best writers of the twentieth century. The Soul of Kindness was her ninth novel.