The Brandons

This is one of Angela Thirkell's 13 novels set in Trollope's Barsetshire, and peopled with characters from the upper crust of society to the tyrants behind the green baize doors and the miscreants of Grumper's end. Here are the beautiful Mrs Brandon (before whom even the vicar blushes and stammers), fierce Aunt Sissie, the Italy-addicted Mrs Grant and many others. Old and young fall into a hopeless tangle, not unravelled until after the antics of the vicarage fete. Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) was one of the best known comic novelists of her day. She was grand-daughter of Edward Burne-Jones, a cousin of Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin and mother of Colin MacInnes and Graham McInnes.