Venusberg

Lushington, a serious young man who believes implicity in progress, is posted as special correspondent to an obscure Baltic state. There, in the unstable political situation, he hopes to find some newsworthy stories and to forget a failed love affair. But the frivolous, party-going capital Lushington becomes involved with some decidedly eccentric individuals-the egregious valet, Pope, known to his army comrades as "the Duke," the ostentatious Count Bobel, who sells face cream and smells of brilliantine, and the mysterious Frau Mavrin, all of whom involve Lushington and the reader in a wry and sophisticated dialogue.

Noted British author Anthony Powell, best known for his A Dance to the Music of Time, demonstrates his seemingly unfading sense of comic wonderment regarding the human species. The London Times Literary Supplement noted of this book: "There are chapters which are wildly funny without ever degenerating into farce, and a whole gallery or richly comic subordinate characters."