More Women Than Men

'Original, artful and elegant... To read her for the first time is a singular experience' Hilary Mantel

The electrically witty story of a headmistress struggling to retain an iron grip on the hidden plots and allegiances in her girls' school, reissued for the first time in decades

As another term begins at her girls' school, Josephine Napier reasserts her iron grip over her teachers and family. Her air of studied self-sacrifice conceals ruthless manipulation, but with the introduction of a male teacher to her staff and the return of an old rival for her husband's affections, the mask begins to slip. Old deceptions and new rivalries come to the surface, and the starched perfection of her life is threatened.

A consummate expression of Ivy Compton-Burnett's unique style, full of viciously witty dialogue laced with double meanings and veiled insults, More Women Than Men is a masterful dissection of gender and power by an essential twentieth-century writer.