Denry the Audacious

A sparkling comic portrait of a young man's audacious climb from the bottom rung of provincial English society to the very top. Edward Henry Machin, Denry to everyone, is the son of a washerwoman in the industrial town of Bursley, born into modest circumstances but cursed with an unshakeable belief in his own brilliance. When a chance dance with a Countess ignites ambitions far beyond his station, Denry embarks on a career of audacious self-advancement that would be utterly shameless if it weren't so genuinely entertaining. He cheats his way into a scholarship, bamboozles his way into elite gatherings, and climbs the municipal ladder with a charm that is equal parts irresistible and infuriating. Bennett's genius lies in neither condemning nor celebrating his protagonist, simply observing the glorious absurdity of it all with pinpoint precision and wicked, affectionate humor. The novel endures because its subject is eternal: the burning desire to be more than you were born to be, and the audacious people willing to do whatever it takes.