It was in Pastors and Masters in 1925 that [Compton-Burnett's] main work began, and you might say that like William Faulkner with Sartoris she discovered a universe of her own which she was always to continue populating. She … started publishing under the reticent name of "I. Compton-Burnett", sexually confusing to some of her readers, and most of the main sequence came out as slimmish, economical and very abstemiously-presented books,… all appearing very much kin among themselves, and all having a universe and a tone in common. The universe was reassuring, but the tone not. It was savagely aphoristic and ironic, and touched the world she handled with sensationalism and a devastating moral exposure which was less an attack on it than on life itself. The mixture of reticence and sensationalism, of nostalgia and irony, attracted much attention, and this finally became a high reputation…. However, the books were, and...