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 when Horace undergoes an altogether unforeseeable change of heart that the real difficulties begin. [...]

"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 novels. Writing almost entirely in dialogue, Compton-Burnett stages a series of conversational duel[...]

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 business associate, is his younger brother Hamish.When Hamish dies of a heart condition, his son Simon prepares to take over a[...]