Isabel Colegate 
Orlando King 

The masterpiece of one of the most important and overlooked British women writers of the twentieth century, with a new introduction by Melissa Harrison; “Isabel Colegate has no rival“ (The Times)




“If you are curious as to why Britain is still ruled by a tiny cadre of not-very-introspective aristo-capitalists, Orlando King is essential reading“ Sunday Times




“Colegate“s sharp-eyed trilogy about a young man on the make in 1930s London feels particularly resonant right now, given its acute take on male privilege and power“ i paper, Summer Reading Picks 2020




“An extraordinary achievement“ Frances Wilson, Times Literary Supplement,
Summer Reading Picks 2020



Orlando King is a trilogy about a beautiful young man, raised in a remote and eccentric wilderness, arriving in 1930s London and setting the world of politics ablaze. In a time of bread riots and hunger marches, with the spectre of Fascism casting an ever lengthening shadow over Europe, Orlando glidingly cuts a swathe through the thickets of business, the corridors of politics, the pleasure gardens of the Cliveden set, acquiring wealth, adulation, a beautiful wife, and a seat in Parliament. But the advent of war brings with it Orlando“s downfall; and his daughter Agatha, cloistered with him in his banishment, is left to pick through the rubble of his smoking, ruined legacy.



Elegant and muscular, powerful and razor-sharp,
Orlando King is a bildungsroman, Greek tragedy and political saga all in one; a glittering exorcism of the inter-war generation“s demons to rival the work of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark.