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‘A thing to rejoice over’ EVELYN WAUGH

‘A literary master’ IAN MCEWAN

‘Wilson is like an agent, a brilliant snooper in some branch of intelligence, picking up his material from the scattered refugees of moral disorder’ GUARDIAN

Illicit queer crushes on a family picnic. A nightclub singer lecturing her Communist nephew. Drunken feuds at the seedy South Kensington Hotel’s staff dance. The eccentric spinsters tempting a little boy to grotesque acts.

Welcome to the singular world of Angus Wilson. An overlooked legend of the post-war queer landscape, he casts a waspish, tragicomic yet oddly tender eye across mid-century England. Jitterbugging, espresso bars, spivs, Angry Young Men, teddy boys, satanic masses in village living rooms: all of life is here in these beloved stories. Savage in their deadly anatomy of social class yet compassionate in their portrayal of misfit outsiders, these are mini Austenesque novels-of-(bad)-manners, seething with high-octane dialogue, baroque humour and macabre secrets.

Introduced by Margaret Drabble