The Unbearable Bassington

The Unbearable Bassington, published in 1912, is Saki's first novel. Francesca Dorvington needs her wayward son Comus to make a good marriage to save the family's position and their beloved London house. But Comus, brilliant and beautiful and entirely without scruple, cannot help sabotaging his own prospects. What begins as social comedy grows steadily darker, and the novel's devastating final pages reveal a depth of feeling entirely absent from Saki's short stories. It is the work in which H.H. Munro shows what lies beneath the wit — and it is not comfortable.