The first of these two novels, written back in the 1890s, is generally agreed to be Somerville and Rosss masterpiece, and one of the half-dozen or so Irish novels which might justifiably be called great. It covers a whole social panorama, from the Big Houses to the small-town bourgeoisie down to the thatched cottages, and though the authors are somewhat snobbish and condescending towards Francie, the pretty young interloper from Dublin, she is real and touching even in her social gaucherie. The contrasting portrait of scheming Charlotte herself, a really bad woman, has a kind of Balzacian power. The second novel has never gained the popularity of the first and in certain aspects is rather a flawed book, but it too is a powerful social chronicle of a world which is not entirely gone. The mansion of the title is based on Tyrone House, in Co Galway.

If you take your novels at a serious level you should consider this splendid classic. Scheming, embittered, plain and a bully, Charlotte Mullen is one of the great creations of Irish literature and her antagonistic relationship with Francie Fitzpatrick is a story of romantic intrigue and deception, laced with a good dollop of downright badness. Edith Somerville died just over fifty years ago in 1949, some fifty years after she finished this novel which is unique for several other reasons - it was written by two authors and was probably the last major novel to be published in three volumes. This is a fine new edition with an interesting introduction by Gifford Lewis, Edith's biographer and very detailed notes by the publishers Anna and Tony Farmar.