‘Ivy Compton-Burnett was that rare novelist who finds a form perfect for what she has to say and sticks to it… She is the cynic’s cynic, and remains deeply shocking’

Philip Hensher

‘Dark, hilarious, evil… I have all twenty of her novels and I’ve read nineteen. If I read the one that is left there will be no more Ivy Compton-Burnett for me and I will probably have to die myself’

John Waters

‘Hilarious, harrowing… [like] Jane Austen on bad drugs’

Francine Prose

‘Her scalpel-sharp pen performed startling surgery on the accepted concept of genteel family life’

Daily Telegraph

‘Absolutely sui generis… Her remorseless humor and savagery are a unique cocktail. There’s no middle ground with this novelist— you’re either bewildered by her or you become an addict’

BOMB

‘A remarkable and unusual novelist, who has, in her own well-tilled field, no rival and no parallel’

TLS