About the book: 1978 / Elspeth Davey was born in Scotland and spent the first years of her life in the south of England. She attended school in Edinburgh and studied at university and the College of Art there. She taught art for several years. In addition to short stories that appeared in English and American literary magazines and those that were published in two collections, Mrs. Davey also wrote two novels: Preparations (1971) and Setting the Scene (1969). The second of these novels, which reflected her love of painting, was awarded the Scottish Arts Council Literary Prize. Elspeth Davey gradually established her reputation among serious readers of modern literature as an original and insightful observer of everyday phenomena and their sometimes profound influence on the characters in her stories. In a review in the Guardian, Janice Elliott noted: “Her ideas are strange but disturbingly accurate, they are not gloomy, not pretentious, and even very funny.” The story “Allergy” is taken from the collection “The Man Who Only Talks at High Tide, and Other Stories", published by Hamish Hamilton in 1976.