She is not only a romantic but an anarchist, and she knows the ways of men and women very well indeed Anita Brookner

Hugo Potts is a successful London playwright enjoying his moment of notoriety. Adored by critics and pursued by women, hes the darling of the literary scene. But his public personae is exactly that a personae and he works exhaustedly day and night to portray the person the public expect him to be. One weekend he attends a party at a country house alongside the most important publishers and writers of the time. Its an opportunity, of course, to meet interesting women. But over the course of the weekend he finds himself scorned by one, and unexpectedly profoundly understood by another, and his values and everything hes held to be important abruptly come into question.

Margaret Kennedy was born in London on 23 April 1896, the eldest of four children. She attended Cheltenham Ladies College, then went on to study history at Somerville College, Oxford. Her first book, a commissioned work of history, was published in 1922 and was soon followed by her first work of fiction,The Ladies of Lyndon(1923). Her second novel,The Constant Nymph(1924), became a worldwide bestseller, and with it Kennedy became a well-known and highly praised writer. The following year she married David Davies, a barrister; they lived in London and had three children. Kennedy went on to write fifteen further novels, many of which were critically commended Troy Chimneys(1953) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. She also wrote plays, adapting bothThe Constant Nymphand its sequelThe Fool of the Familyvery successfully. The former opened in the West End in 1926, starring Noel Coward followed by John Gielgud, to great acclaim. Three different film versions ofThe Constant Nymph, featuring stars of the time such as Ivor Novello and Joan Fontaine, were equally popular, and led to Kennedys engagement in film work for a number of years from the late 1930s. She also published a study of Jane Austen (1950) and a work of literary criticism,The Outlaws on Parnassus, in 1958. In 1964 Margaret Kennedy moved from London to Woodstock, Oxfordshire, where she lived until her death on 31 July 1967.