A Compass Error

In the 1920s Europe was still a place of hope. Flavia, aged seventeen, on her own in the south of France, is sure that she can win a place at Oxford, write great books and put the world to rights.

But life does not reciprocate this high-minded simplicity. In spite of first love, the world is harder, crueller, than she could have believed. Behind Flavia's story, recollected in middle age, is yet another perspective of the story told in A Favourite of the Gods. The sunlit quality of Sybille Bedford's writing does not smooth away the sharp edges of truth.