Pastors and Masters (1925) is the first of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s 19 published novels. A critic for The New Statesman wrote: “It is astonishing, amazing. It is like nothing else in the world. It is a work of genius.” In it, Compton-Burnett introduces her famously acerbic style using only clipped, sharp dialogue. One isn’t sure whether it is comic, tragic, or camp (as Susan Sontag averred). It is largely a character study, dealing with themes of literary ambition, intellectual property and plagiarism, tyranny, female subservience, and unconventional sexuality within the setting of an English boys’ preparatory school. - Summary by Rick Whitaker