Long before her novels were rediscovered as masterpieces of Anglo-Irish fiction, Molly Keane was writing some of the best social comedies of the twentieth century under the name M. J. Farrell. 

Set among the fading certainties of the Anglo-Irish upper classes, the novel observes a country-house gathering with Keane's trademark combination of wit, cruelty and psychological precision. Beneath the polished manners and endless rounds of tennis, cocktails and conversation lies an acute study of performance, insecurity and social competition. Few writers captured the rituals of privilege with such elegance while remaining so merciless about their absurdities.

Although often compared to Nancy Mitford and Elizabeth Bowen, Keane's novels possess a darker emotional undercurrent, exposing the loneliness, repression and desperation concealed beneath. Following her rediscovery in the 1980s, her work has rightly been recognised as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century Irish fiction.

Virago Modern Classics paperback, first Virago edition (1986), originally published in 1935 under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell. In very good condition, with light shelf wear to the covers, a sound binding and clean, unmarked pages throughout.