Before Lunch

Jack Middleton is not an easy man to get on with. Fortunately, the only person who can is Mrs Middleton.

Jack's sister Lilian and her two stepchildren Daphne and Denis have planned to spend the summer in the house next door and, true to form, Jack is dreading it. Daphne is far too lively for his taste and Denis is not lively enough.

When the trio arrive, however, they captivate the Barchester village with their wit, charm and music. In no time many of the local residents - not least of all Lord and Lady Bond, Lord Stoke and a great many more - are in the palms of their hands. Even Jack himself is ripe for conversation.

Before Lunch is a delightful social comedy of village life before the war.

Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) was the eldest daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish classical scholar and civil servant, and Margaret Burne-Jones. Her relatives included the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin, and her grandfather was J. M. Barrie. She was educated in London and Paris, and began publishing articles and stories in the 1920s. In 1931 she brought out her first book, a memoir entitled Three Houses, and in 1933 her comic novel High Rising - set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, borrowed from Trollope - met with great success. She went on to write nearly thirty Barsetshire novels, as well as several further works of fiction and non-fiction. She was twice married and had four children.