An Act in a Backwater

Colonel Raymond is the kind of man who believes every handshake forges an eternal bond and every political opponent is a scoundrel. Retired from military service but never from his grandiose sense of self-importance, he schemes to climb from his modest station into the glittering orbit of the aristocracy after the death of a wealthy relative throws his ambitions into chaos. E.F. Benson, master of the uncanny tale, turns his sharp eye to the absurd theater of English social ambition, exposing the emptiness behind the pomp and the desperate performance of respectability. The satire cuts deep: here is a world where a man's worth is measured by the pedigrees of his acquaintances, where a military title opens no doors that money cannot also pry wide, and where family bonds buckle under the weight of inheritance. Benson writes with the precision of a surgeon and the timing of a born comedian, skewering pretension while never losing affection for his foolish creations. This is social satire of the old school, bitter enough to bite but gentle enough to smile at. Readers who delight in the comedies of Oscar Wilde or the social observing of P.G. Wodehouse will find much to love in this small masterpiece of Edwardian mockery.