Before Lunch

Published in 1939, Before Lunch is a portrait of the charming English community of "Barsetshire." When the erection of a tea shop and garage threatens to spoil the bovine pastures of Pooker's Piece, Lady Bond and Lord Pomfret unite with the Middletons and the Stoners to stop it. In the meantime, the young and the notsoyoung all fall in lovethough not always with the right personand sort out their affairs in a hilarious welter of crosspurposes. For those who have read and reread Austen, Trollope, and Dickens, discovering a novel by Angela Thirkell is akin to finding gold in an abandoned mine. Long out of print, her novels are currently enjoying a minor renaissance.