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In this book Sarah Gamble explores Angela Carter's celebration of the marginal, the balance in her work between history and fantasy, fairy tale and reality, excessive desire and love and looks at how these tensions influenced both the form and content of her fiction. Providing close, perceptive readings of all of Carter's fiction, many of the short stories, as well as the non-fiction writing, Sarah Gamble demonstrates how, throughout her career, Carter wrote with the intention of subverting consensus views of any kind, in particular, the conception of history as unalterable 'master narrative', conventional social codes regarding propriety and 'woman's place', and the artificial distinction between 'high' and 'low' literature. This is an illuminating study of a startlingly original and influential writer which will appeal to students and the general reader alike.