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Manservant and Maidservant Ivy Compton-Burnett

Manservant and Maidservant By Ivy Compton-Burnett

Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett


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Summary

A ruthless satire of power struggles and petty economies, Manservant and Maidservant exposes the violence and cruelty at the core of Victorian family life.

Manservant and Maidservant Summary

Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett

Horace Lamb runs an austere household with tyrannical force and cruel thrift. His five children shiver through the winter and learn that a fire is not a thing to be taken for granted. Hierarchies are more lightly enforced in the servants' quarters, where Bullivant and Mrs Selden attempt to rein in their young charges. When Horace suddenly turns attentive and caring, the real difficulties begin: the taut order of the household slackens, setting loose old grievances. Her own favourite among her novels, Manservant and Maidservant is Ivy Compton-Burnett at her witty, lacerating best. A ruthless satire of power struggles and petty economies, it exposes the violence and cruelty at the core of Victorian family life.

Manservant and Maidservant Reviews

'Original, artful and elegant... To read her for the first time is a singular experience' - Hilary Mantel

'Shrewd, sly, mordantly funny and magnificently odd, few literary voices are as distinctive, or as entertaining, as Ivy Compton-Burnett's. To see a novel of hers back in print is always a cause for celebration' - Sarah Waters

'Compton-Burnett anatomised primal emotions in a genteel arena: there are shades of Jane Austen here, as well as Pinter and Muriel Spark, but she remains entirely original - funny, shocking, horribly true' - Justine Jordan

'Bonkers... a tightly repressed mania holds sway. Relief takes the form of howls of laughter from the reader' - Geoff Dyer

'She is as much part of our great twentieth-century fictional heritage as Virginia Woolf or Elizabeth Bowen... She writes wonderfully, giving her often ghastly characters mordantly witty lines worthy of Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde' - Guardian

About Ivy Compton-Burnett

Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969) was one of twentieth-century England's most original and admired writers. The seventh of thirteen children, she was raised in Richmond and Hove and studied Classics at Royal Holloway College. Her family was struck by repeated disasters starting with the death of her father in 1901; Compton-Burnett eventually took charge of the household until it was broken up during the First World War. Compton-Burnett lived alone in London until she was joined in 1919 by Margaret Jourdain, a writer and furniture expert who was to be her lifelong companion. Aside from a disavowed early novel, Compton-Burnett published eighteen highly acclaimed works of fiction in her lifetime, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was made a Dame shortly before her death. A House and Its Head, More Women than Men and Daughters and Sons are also available from Pushkin Press.

Additional information

NGR9781782278689
9781782278689
1782278680
Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
New
Paperback
Pushkin Press
2022-05-26
320
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a new book - be the first to read this copy. With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time

Customer Reviews - Manservant and Maidservant