Ivy Compton-Burnett fue una novelista inglesa de original estilo y densidad. Muy apreciada por ciertos lectores cultivados, fue premiada en 1955 por su novela Mother and Son con el James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Wikipedia
“Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down.”
Ivy Compton-Burnett, quoted in Elizabeth Sprigge's The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett (New York: G. Braziller, 1973) p. 79.
Criticism
Angus Wilson, quoted in Malcolm Bradbury The Modern British Novel (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2001) p. 250.
Criticism
“Pushing forty? She's clinging on to it for dear life!”
A common misattribution first made by Nigel Rees in Quote…Unquote 3 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983) as the result of a mishearing, and withdrawn by him in Cassell Companion to Quotations (London: Cassell, 1997) p. 179.
Misattributed
“A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.”
More Women than Men (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, [1933] 1951) p. 54.
Nathalie Sarraute L'Ère du soupçon (Paris: Gallimard, 1956) p. 119; Maria Jolas (trans.) The Age of Suspicion (New York: George Braziller, 1963) p. 112.
Criticism
“The most original novelist now writing in English.”
V. S. Pritchett, quoted in Time, April 4, 1955. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,866174-2,00.html.
Criticism
“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.”
"A Conversation Between I. Compton-Burnett and M. Jourdain", in R. Lehmann et al. (eds.) Orion (London: Nicholson & Watson, 1945) vol. 1, p. 2.
Darkness and Day (London: Victor Gollancz, [1951] 1974) p. 216.
A Family and a Fortune (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, [1939] 1949) p. 54.
Manservant and Maidservant (London: Victor Gollancz, [1947] 1972) p. 5.