Cakes and Ale

Published in 1930, this novel is narrated by the writer William Ashenden, who is asked to help with a respectful biography of the late Victorian novelist Edward Driffield. The official version, pushed by Driffield's second wife and by the fashionable author Alroy Kear, wants to bury the first marriage. Ashenden's memory returns to the Kentish town of his youth and to Rosie, the barmaid who was Driffield's first wife and whose generosity and sexual freedom the literary world cannot admit. The book is a comedy of literary reputation: a study of how a dead writer's life is rewritten by those who inherit him.

Bound in green cloth with a pictorial design in black by Masterman. Pale green endleaves. Dark blue slipcase.