Abstract
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett was born in London and educated privately and at Royal Holloway College, London University. Pastors and Masters (1925) inaugurated a long series of novels, composed mostly of dialogue, set in large households of country gentry at the end of the nineteenth century, remarkable for their blend of humour and savagery. A House and its Head (1935), A Family and a Fortune (1939), and Manservant and Maidservant (1947) are among the best. The family headed by Duncan Grant experiences, with a calmness that is both chilling and absurd, a series of shocking events. Here a simple matter of the widower’s departure on a visit reveals a degree of detachment in his daughters and nephew which reflects his own macabre lack of feeling.
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© 1989 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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McEwan, N. (1989). Ivy Compton-Burnett 1892–1969. In: McEwan, N. (eds) The Twentieth Century (1900–present). Macmillan Anthologies of English Literature. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20151-8_34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20151-8_34
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-46477-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-20151-8
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