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Originally published in 1948, County Chronicle is a clever and quintessentially British classic in Angela Thirkell's beloved Barsetshire series. Now available as a Virago Modern Classic. 'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York Times

The county of Barsetshire is aflutter with preparations. With the wedding of Lucy Marling and Sam Adams fast approaching, and Lucy's brother Oliver brooding over his ill-fated tendre for glamorous Jessica Dean, Mrs Marling calls for reinforcements. Help arrives in the form of charming writer Isabel Dale, still mourning the loss of her fiance on D-Day - and in need of her own fresh start. Meanwhile, social barriers are crumbling at Omnium Castle, where theatrical rehearsals are bringing together the newly married Brandons and the impoverished Duke's children, Lady Cora and Lord Silverbridge. The stage is set for a season of new alliances, old friends and second chances.

A sparkling and deeply affectionate portrait of post-war England, County Chronicle follows The Old Bank House in Angela Thirkell's beloved Barsetshire series. You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own - New York Times

The novels are a delight, with touches of E. F. Benson, E. M. Delafield and P. G. Wodehouse - Independent on Sunday

Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself - Alexander McCall Smith Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) was the eldest daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish classical scholar and civil servant, and Margaret Burne-Jones. Her relatives included the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin, and her grandfather was J. M. Barrie. She was educated in London and Paris, and began publishing articles and stories in the 1920s. In 1931 she brought out her first book, a memoir entitled Three Houses, and in 1933 her comic novel High Rising - set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, borrowed from Trollope - met with great success. She went on to write nearly thirty Barsetshire novels, as well as several further works of fiction and non-fiction. She was twice married and had four children. Originally published in 1948, County Chronicle is a clever and quintessentially British classic in Angela Thirkell's beloved Barsetshire series. Now available as a Virago Modern Classic.