On 13 August 2013 a graphic novelist invited four old friends from university to an isolated cottage on the misty moors of the Peak District to join her for a week of hedonism and creativity. Like Shelley and Byron before them, they would use the retreat to tell stories. Except these would be comics. This book collects together these comics.

When sixteen-year-old Portia is orphaned she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive.

When it comes to death, is there ever a best case scenario? In this book, the author confronts our unending obsession with the end. He also reflects on what it means to miss God, whether death can be good for our careers and why we eventually turn into our parents.

With a rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug-dealer, gonzo-porn-star and taxi-driver, 'Juice' Terry Lawson, finally met his match in Hurricane 'Bawbag'?

He is a middle-aged American writer called Philip; she is an articulate, well-educated Englishwoman trapped in a loveless and humiliating marriage. In Philip's London studio, this play of voices - sharp, tender and inquiring - reveals both their past lives with startling clarity.

How does a writer compose a suicide note? In this true account of his depression, the author describes an illness that reduced him from a successful writer to a man arranging his own destruction. It includes a description of his descent into mental anguish, and his eventual success in overcoming a little-understood yet very common condition.

In Belgrave Square old Mr Gresham is baffled by his tigerish daughter Rebecca, whose intentions he cannot fathom. In the clubs of St James' rakish Mr Happerton plays billiards with his crony Captain Raff, while in darkest Lincolnshire sad Mr Davenant broods over his financial embarrassments and waits for his daughter's new governess.

You've just passed someone on the street who could be the love of your life, the person you're destined for - what do you do? This book features five tales, each of which, unlocks the many-tongued language of desire, whether it takes the form of hunger, lust, sudden infatuation or the secret longings of the heart.