At the centre of this novel stands Harriet Haslam, the epitome of the maternal power figure,whose genuine but overpowering love dominates the novel and whose self-knowledge drives her into insanity. E
Eleanor and Fulbert Sullivan live, with their nine children ranging from nursery to university age, in a huge country house belonging to Fulbert's parents, Sir Jesse and Lady Regan. Sir Jesse sends Fu
Edwin Muir wrote of Ivy Compton-Burnett in the Observer: 'Her literary abilities have been abundantly acknowledged by the majority of her literary contemporaries. Her intense individuality has removed
The Donne family's move to the country is inspired by a wish to be close to their cousins, who are to be their nearest neighbours. It proves too close for comfort, however. For a secret switching of w
First published in 1959, A Heritage and its History tells the story of 69 year old Sir Edwin Challoner, and his extended family.Unmarried, and with no direct issue, Challoner's closest relation, and b
"I cannot be parted longer from my sons.... I am coming back to my home." Nine years after her divorce from Cassius Clare, Catherine decides to re-enter his life. Her decision causes a dramatic upheav
At once the strangest and most marvelous of Ivy Compton-Burnett's fictions, Manservant and Maidservant has for its subject the domestic life of Horace Lamb, sadist, skinflint, and tyrant. But it is w
Abuse, adultery, incest, extortion, and murder: these are among the secrets guarded - or shared - by the respectable families at the center of Ivy Compton-Burnett's darkly comic and deeply subversive
