A Heritage and its History

"Ivy Compton-Burnett is one of the most original, artful,and elegant writers of our century." Hilary MantelUnmarried, and with no direct issue, 69 year old SirEdwin Challoner's closest relation, and business associate, is his youngerbrother Hamish. When Hamish dies of a heart condition, his son Simon preparesto take over as head of the house, as everyone assumes that Sir Edwin will alsodie in a matter of months. However, Sir Edwin surprises everyone by announcing hismarriage to his neighbour, Rhoda, who is more than forty years his junior.Following the return from their honeymoon, Rhoda shares a night of passion withSimon, her new husband's nephew. When Rhoda falls pregnant, there is noquestion who has fathered the child. A Heritage and its History, gets right to the heart ofthe illicit affairs of this family as it grows increasingly bitter andresentful. The reader watches on in amazement as two families become more and moreentangled, and the path to the inheritance of this once great house and titlebecomes ever more twisted. Sooner or later, the secret must come out...

Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969) grew up in Hove and London. She was encouraged by her father, who sadly died from a sudden heart attack when she was sixteen, to read Classics from a young age. She attended Holloway College in London to study Classics and wrote her first novel Delores in 1911. Compton-Burnett suffered several losses after her father - her closest brother died three years later, three more of her younger siblings and her mother passed away by the time she was 35, something she rarely spoke about, but constantly visited in her novels.

Compton-Burnett published twenty novels. However, the first of her works to use her mature and original style was published when she was forty, in 1925. Compton-Burnett's fiction is often said to be Edwardian in setting - the domestic occurences in large households. She never married and lived in London as companion to Margaret Jourdain. She was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1967.