First published in 1924, this is at once a tragicomedy and an anti-romance. At its centre are the children of Albert Sanger, a bohemian and profligate composer said to be based on Augustus John. These rude honeys, with their naphtha-flare brilliance, are pitched out of their Tyrolean Eden on their father’s sudden death and are scattered to the four winds. What begins as a comedy shifts into a satire of ‘cultured’ England with its extinguishing conventionality and casual anti-Semitism; love and selfishness play out as they must. It’s an absolutely wonderful novel.
