'I think, that it is right and renewing to remember acts of love because, in the brevity of our lives, there is not enough time for loving.' The Shelf is a repository in the coroner's office where Cassandra's letters to Anne are lodged. And with them is that other letter - the one Anne never posted, the one found in her handbag. It was all so long ago - over twenty years before - but Cass has never been able to forget the passion Anne engendered in her, their brief affair, and the mystery that ended it. Kay Dick's most autobiographical relates the story of the brief affair she had with a married woman in the 1960s, and portrays much of the homophobia she experienced as an openly queer woman. The events described are true, her narrator writes, 'Though I shall deny it of course.' Acclaimed at the time of its release and long out of print, this new edition of The Shelf introduces the masterwork of Dick's anomalous oeuvre - along with the writer herself - to a new generation of readers.