Volume 48, Number 4 · March 8, 2001
The Unspoken Word
By Diane Johnson
The first thing that strikes the reader of Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels is that they are written almost entirely in dialogue, with the merest stage directions to place people or indicate who is speaking. This was considered their innovation, the something 'modern' about them when her first books were published in England in the 1920s, to growing acclaim. It also explains their difficulty. Their difficulty may in turn account for the fact that they were fashionable, and that they are not much read today, so that a new edition of Manservant and Maidservant may be for many readers an introduction to the works of this fascinating novelist.[*]
Feature, 2031 words
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