''A comic masterpiece'' Patrick Gale, GuardianPillar of society and stern upholder of Victorian values, god-fearing Norfolk merchant John Barnard presides over a large and largely unhappy family. This is their story - his brandy-swilling wife, their hapless offspring and their changing fortunes - over the decades. Sylvia Townsend Warner''s last novel, The Flint Anchor gloriously overturns our ideas of history, family and storytelling itself.''A novel created with solidity and subtlety of feeling, a fusion of warmth, wit and quietly biting shrewdness that are reminiscent of Jane Austen'' Atlantic Review''As a sustained work of historical imagination, it has few rivals ... one of the most acute and intelligent writers of her age'' Claire Harman