His eight short novels, partly inspired by the London aesthetes of the 1890s, especially Oscar Wilde, consist largely of dialogue, with references to religion, social-climbing, and sexuality.

[1] At the age of fourteen Firbank went briefly to Uppingham School (September 1900 to April 1901)[2] and then on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Mabel elopes with an Italian conte, but the plot is of minor importance and the interest, as with all Firbank's work, lies in the dialogue.

Captain Thoroughfare, who is engaged to a black woman, Niri-Esther, is loved frantically by Thetis Tooke, a farmer's daughter, but prefers his 'chum', Jack Whorwood, to both of them.

Meanwhile Mrs Yajñavalkya, a black masseuse, manages an alliance between the centenarian Lady Parvula de Panzoust and David Tooke, Thetis's brother.

The characters include the King and Queen, sundry high-born ladies about the Court, and the usual attendant chorus of priests and nuns.

A socially ambitious black family move from their rural home to the capital, and the story is concerned with their attempts, which prove mainly abortive, to 'get into society'.

Playwright Joe Orton was an admirer of Firbank's works, calling him "the only impressionist in the English novel" and "the source.

[9] His novels have been championed by many English novelists including E. M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Alan Hollinghurst and Simon Raven.