Manservant and Maidservant
Encyclopedia
Manservant and Maidservant is a 1947
novel
by Ivy Compton-Burnett
. It was published in the United States
with the title Bullivant and the Lambs.
Whenever the author was asked which of her novels were her favorites, she always mentioned Manservant and Maidservant and A House and Its Head
.
1947 in literature
The year 1947 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Diary of Anne Frank is published for the first time.*Jack Kerouac makes the journey which he will later chronicle in his book On the Road....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, DBE was an English novelist, published as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel Mother and Son.-Life:...
. It was published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with the title Bullivant and the Lambs.
Whenever the author was asked which of her novels were her favorites, she always mentioned Manservant and Maidservant and A House and Its Head
A House and Its Head
A House and Its Head is a 1935 novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Whenever she was asked which of her novels were her favorites, Compton-Burnett always referred to A House and Its Head and Manservant and Maidservant....
.
“Manservant and Maidservant is among the funniest and most surprising of Compton-Burnett's inventions. It focuses on the householdHouseholdThe household is "the basic residential unit in which economic production, consumption, inheritance, child rearing, and shelter are organized and carried out"; [the household] "may or may not be synonymous with family"....
of Horace Lamb, sadist, skinflint, and tyrant, a man whose children fear and hate him and whose wife is planning to elope[ with Horace's cousinCousinIn kinship terminology, a cousin is a relative with whom one shares one or more common ancestors. The term is rarely used when referring to a relative in one's immediate family where there is a more specific term . The term "blood relative" can be used synonymously and establishes the existence of...] . But it is when Horace undergoes an altogether unforeseeable change of heart that the real difficulties begin. Is the repentantRepentanceRepentance is a change of thought to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law...
master a victim along with his sometime slavesSlaverySlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
? What compensationDamagesIn law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
, or consolation, can there be for the wrongWrongA wrong or being wrong is a concept in law, ethics, epistemology, and science. In a colloquial sense, wrongness usually refers to a state of incorrectness, inaccuracy, error, or miscalculation in any number of contexts...
s that have been done?” — from the back cover of the NYRB Classics edition, 2001.