This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2023) |
Author | Ivy Compton-Burnett |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | W. Heinemann Ltd |
Publication date | 1935 |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 287 pp |
A House and Its Head is a 1935 novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett, republished in 2001 by New York Review Books with an afterword by Francine Prose and in 2021 by Pushkin Press with an introduction by Hilary Mantel. [1] [2] The novel, which focuses on an upper-middle class Victorian household in the 1880s, explores themes such as family secrets and the subordination of women by men. [3] When asked in 1962 which of her novels were her favourites, Compton-Burnett referred to Manservant and Maidservant and "the first two-thirds" of A House and Its Head. [4]
A House and Its Head introduces a Victorian family: patriarch Duncan Edgeworth, his wife Ellen, his daughters Nance and Sibyl, and his nephew Grant, who is in line to inherit their house. Duncan is tyrannical and overbearing; early on, he throws a science book by Grant, which he finds "immoral," into a fire.
Ellen falls ill and dies, after which Duncan quickly remarries. His new wife, Alison, is beautiful but young -- scarcely older than his children. The marriage proves disastrous. Alison begins an affair with Grant, and they conceive a child, Richard. She tries to keep Richard's parentage a secret, but Duncan learns the child is not his from a letter from the family's former nurse, mentioning a white streak in Richard's hair. Alison elopes with family friend Almeric Bode, while Duncan marries the family governess Cassie, who agrees for financial reasons. They have a son, William.
Grant proposes to Nance, who turns him down, and then Sibyl, who accepts. Sibyl, angry that Richard is now in line to inherit Grant's property, pays the nurse to kill Richard by gassing him; she then spreads rumors insinuating that Duncan and/or Cassie may have been responsible. The murder is uncovered by Mrs. Jekyll, Cassie's mother, when she sees an incriminating letter in Sibyl's purse; the letter also reveals that Sibyl paid the nurse to write the letter to Duncan.
Grant leaves Sibyl, who moves in with her ill aunt. Sibyl inherits her aunt's fortune once she dies and asks Grant to forgive her, promising to share it with him. Grant reluctantly accepts.
The cast of characters introduced in the opening chapters: [5]
Several contemporary writers and critics have praised A House and Its Head. Rebecca Abrams, writing in the New Statesman, ranked it among the publication's most important novels of the 20th century, comparing it to the work of Henry James. [6] Hilary Mantel, writing in The Telegraph, called the book "the merriest tale of human depravity you will ever read." [7] Prose, in her afterword, likened the novel's conclusion to "Jane Austen on bad drugs." [8]
Peter Philip Carey AO is an Australian novelist.
Educational settings as place and/or subject in fiction form the theme of this catalogue of titles and authors. Organized alphabetically by the author's last name, the information is further divided by general school environments and those where the university, specifically, is the locale. The list spans centuries and geographical boundaries, featuring Charlotte Brontë, Agatha Christie and Honoré de Balzac as well as contemporary writers Curtis Sittenfeld, Joyce Carol Oates and Donna Tartt. For those interested in learning more about the school/university in literature, references are included that provide a more academic study of the subgenre.
Elizabeth Taylor was an English novelist and short-story writer. Kingsley Amis described her as "one of the best English novelists born in this century". Antonia Fraser called her "one of the most underrated writers of the 20th century", while Hilary Mantel said she was "deft, accomplished and somewhat underrated".
Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish novelist, surgeon, critic and playwright. He was best known for picaresque novels such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), which influenced later novelists, including Charles Dickens. His novels were liberally altered by contemporary printers; an authoritative edition of each was edited by Dr O. M. Brack Jr and others.
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, was an English novelist, published in the original editions as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel Mother and Son. Her works consist mainly of dialogue and focus on family life among the late Victorian or Edwardian upper middle class.
Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank was an innovative English novelist. His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with references to religion, social-climbing, and sexuality.
Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, written as a boys' novel and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886. The novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Hilary Mantel. A sequel, Catriona, was published in 1893.
(John) Robert Liddell was an English literary critic, biographer, novelist, travel writer and poet.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a 1977 Newbery Medal awarded novel by Mildred D. Taylor. It is a part of her Logan family series, a sequel to her 1975 novella Song of the Trees.
Augustan prose is somewhat ill-defined, as the definition of "Augustan" relies primarily upon changes in taste in poetry. However, the general time represented by Augustan literature saw a rise in prose writing as high literature. The essay, satire, and dialogue thrived in the age, and the English novel was truly begun as a serious art form. At the outset of the Augustan age, essays were still primarily imitative, novels were few and still dominated by the Romance, and prose was a rarely used format for satire, but, by the end of the period, the English essay was a fully formed periodical feature, novels surpassed drama as entertainment and as an outlet for serious authors, and prose was serving every conceivable function in public discourse. It is the age that most provides the transition from a court-centered and poetic literature to a more democratic, decentralized literary world of prose.
Literary Review is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho. The magazine was edited for fourteen years by veteran journalist Auberon Waugh. The current editor is Nancy Sladek.
Reverse chronology is a narrative structure and method of storytelling whereby the plot is revealed in reverse order.
Manservant and Maidservant is a 1947 novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. It was published in the United States with the title Bullivant and the Lambs.
The 2012 Booker Prize for Fiction was awarded on 16 October 2012. A longlist of twelve titles was announced on 25 July, and these were narrowed down to a shortlist of six titles, announced on 11 September. The jury was chaired by Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, accompanied by literary critics Dinah Birch and Bharat Tandon, historian and biographer Amanda Foreman, and Dan Stevens, actor of Downton Abbey fame with a background English Literature studies. The jury was faced with the controversy of the 2011 jury, whose approach had been seen as overly populist. Whether or not as a response to this, the 2012 jury strongly emphasised the value of literary quality and linguistic innovation as criteria for inclusion.
William Bruce Ellis Ranken was a British artist and Edwardian aesthete. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Robert Burt Ranken, a wealthy and successful lawyer, and his wife Mary. He attended Eton College and then proceeded to the Slade School of Art, under the tutelage of Henry Tonks. A fellow student was the actor Ernest Thesiger, who became a lifelong friend; he was painted by Ranken in 1918, and married Ranken's sister Janette Ranken in 1917.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old friend Dr Henry Jekyll and a murderous criminal named Edward Hyde.
Cornwall Gardens is a long narrow garden square in South Kensington, London, England.
Daughters and Sons is a 1937 novel by the English novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett. Written in the author's characteristic dialogue-heavy style, the novel explores the power struggles within a large family household, presided over by its tyrannical matriarch, Sabine Ponsonby, and her imperious daughter Hetta.
The title Companion of Literature is the highest award bestowed by the Royal Society of Literature. The title was inaugurated in 1961, and is held by up to twelve living writers at any one time.