(1937)
This is the story of almost sixty years and three generations of an English family. The central figure
is Eleanor Pargiter, and it is really her life that is the subject of the novel. Her father, Colonel Pargiter; her aunt, Eugenie; her brothers and sisters, Rose, Delia, Milly, Edward and Martin; her cousins, Sara and Maggy; Maggy''s husband Renny; and finally Peggy and North, the younger
generation, are all portrayed from within, both in relation to Eleanor and as separate people. The book is a
series of episodes from 1880 up to the present day. The war, the suffragette movement, economic conditions, the Irish question - all play their part in the lives of the characters. Some marry, some die, some travel; a new generation grows up. But in the final scene, when all the family are gathered at a party, and Eleanor, an old woman, reviews her life, she sees it not as a compact whole, but as a formless series of impressions.