The greater part of the book consists of a character study of the staff of a boys’ preparatory school and their small circle of friends – the ‘masters’ and the ‘pastors’ of the title.

At about the same time Bumpus announces his intention to publish a new novel of his own, a complete rewriting of the book he had authored as a young man, though he says that in his case the death of Crabbe has caused his work to be put back.

[5] The book marked the start of what became a remarkable series of fierce but decorous novels dealing with tyranny and power struggles in secluded late-Victorian households, written almost entirely in mordantly witty dialogue.

[7] Writing in The Spectator in 2009, the novelist Francis King noted that even in this early work Compton-Burnett had perfected her skill in implying what her characters think without either her or them openly revealing it.

The novel includes some types, he said, that reappear in various guises in the author’s later works: tyrants who, though full of self pity, brutally victimise all those around them; and decent and loyal female slaves who dedicate themselves to the unrewarding task of trying to keep their families happy.

King also considered it astonishing that, while E. M. Forster was agonising over whether he could publish his homosexual novel Maurice, Compton-Burnett, a seemingly prim spinster, "should have already embarked on dealing with unconventional sexuality with such candour and aplomb".

[8] Pamela Hansford Johnson noted that "this small, quiet, blistering book ... almost solid with conversations" came into the world in 1925, unrelated in any way to that year's actual realities, fantasies, hopes, and fears.