Isabel Colegate has been publishing novels in Great Britain for nearly forty years, maintaining an impressive standard of elegance and intelligence in her work. In a 1991 interview with Angela Lambert, Colegate remarked of her early novels, "I don't think I was what people were looking for at that time." Although it is true that her early work has achieved neither the highest critical favor nor enormous sales, critical and public opinion changed practically overnight with the publication of her 1980 novel, The Shooting Party. The book went on to win the W. H. Smith Literary Award in 1981 and was made into a successful motion picture in 1985. Since then, according to Lambert, Colegate has been "that rare thing, a serious, best-selling writer." Isabel Colegate was born on 10 September 1931 in Lincolnshire to Sir Arthur Colegate, a member of Parliament, and Lady Colegate, born Winefred Worsley. The young girl attended boarding schools...