Ivy Compton-Burnett
born , June 5, 1884, Pinner, Middlesex,
Eng.
died Aug. 27, 1969, London
English writer who developed a distinct form
of novel set almost entirely in dialogue to
dissect personal relationships in the
middle-class Edwardian household.
Compton-Burnett was born into the type of
large family she wrote about. She grew up in
Richmond, Surrey, and in Hove, Sussex,
studying at home until she went to Royal
Holloway College of the University of
London, where she graduated in 1906. At age
35 she met Margaret Jourdain, her lifelong
companion.
Pastors and Masters (1925),
Compton-Burnett’s second novel, was
published 14 years after her first, and it
introduced the style that was to make her
name. In this book the struggle for power,
which occupies so many of her characters, is
brought to light through clipped, precise
dialogue. She achieved her full stature with
Brothers and Sisters (1929), which is about
a willful woman who inadvertently marries
her half brother. Men and Wives (1931) has
at its centre another determined woman, one
whose tyranny drives her son to murder her.
Murder again appears in More Women Than Men
(1933), this time by a woman bent on keeping
her nephew under her domination. The tyrant
is a father in A House and Its Head (1935).
The range of her characterization is
considerable. It is the butler Bullivant who
is the most memorable of the cast of
Manservant and Maidservant (1947; also
published as Bullivant and the Lambs), while
the children in Two Worlds and Their Ways
(1949) are the most tellingly drawn. She was
created Dame of the British Empire in 1967.
