Cakes and Ale

An ambitious biographer is asked to shape the public memory of a celebrated novelist, but the story he wants is not the whole truth. A fellow writer remembers the novelist’s early years, the woman who helped inspire his best work, and the uneasy gap between private life and literary fame. This sharp, humane satire of English literary society looks at reputation, snobbery, desire, and the stories people tell after a writer is gone. First published in 1930, it remains one of the author’s most admired novels.