Orlando Trilogy

Bloomsbury presents Orlando King by Isabel Colegate, read by Antonia Beamish.

The masterpiece of one of the most important and overlooked British women writers of the twentieth century, with a new introduction by Melissa Harrison; 'Isabel Colegate has no rival' (The Times)

'If you are curious as to why Britain is still ruled by a tiny cadre of not-very-introspective aristo-capitalists, Orlando King is essential reading’ Sunday Times

‘Colegate’s sharp-eyed trilogy about a young man on the make in 1930s London feels particularly resonant right now, given its acute take on male privilege and power’ i paper, Summer Reading Picks 2020

'An extraordinary achievement' Frances Wilson, Times Literary Supplement, Summer Reading Picks 2020

Orlando King is a trilogy about a beautiful young man, raised in a remote and eccentric wilderness, arriving in 1930s London and setting the world of politics ablaze. In a time of bread riots and hunger marches, with the spectre of Fascism casting an ever lengthening shadow over Europe, Orlando glidingly cuts a swathe through the thickets of business, the corridors of politics, the pleasure gardens of the Cliveden set, acquiring wealth, adulation, a beautiful wife, and a seat in Parliament. But the advent of war brings with it Orlando’s downfall; and his daughter Agatha, cloistered with him in his banishment, is left to pick through the rubble of his smoking, ruined legacy.

Elegant and muscular, powerful and razor-sharp, Orlando King is a bildungsroman, Greek tragedy and political saga all in one; a glittering exorcism of the inter-war generation’s demons to rival the work of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark.