<DIV><p><b>The cult favorite absurdist comedy by a writer who inspired Wilde, Forster, and Waugh</b></p><p>The fairly young and entirely alive Mrs. Shamefoot wants nothing more than to have a memorial stained-glass window installed in her honor in an English cathedral. From this premise, the inimitable Ronald Firbank extends his witty, eccentric <i>Vainglory</i>, with a crowded cast of hilariously drawn characters—Winsome Brooks, Lady Anne Pantry, Miss Wookie, Mrs. Barrow of Dawn, and Mrs. Steeple, among others—a riot of parties, and a bottomless sense of the ridiculous. Firbank's fine comic skill, quick-fire dialogue, and descriptive flights of fancy are perfectly captured in <i>Vainglory</i>, his first and longest novel, as well as in two novellas included here, <i>Inclinations</i> and <i>Caprice</i>.</p></div>