Sybille Bedford's A Compass Error (1968) is a classic coming-of-age novel, a love story, a family saga and a study in psychological suspense rolled into one. Joining us to discuss it are the novelist Francesca Reece and Krista Cowman, Professor of History at the University of Leicester. The late Hilary Mantel described A Compass Error, Bedford's third novel, as 'a powerful and merciless book ... which visits on its heroine a series of humiliations that cut to the quick'. We explore the book in the context of Bedford's remarkable life and body of autobiographical work, which encompassed fiction, travel writing, reportage and memoir. Where does her "Riviera lesbian thriller" - copyright, Francesca Reece - fit into it all?

Books mentioned
Sybille Bedford - A Compass Error; Jigsaw; Pleasures and Landscapes; A Visit to Don Otavio; The Faces of Justice
Krista Cowman - Women of the Right Spirit! Paid Organizers of the Women's Social and Political Union, 1904 - 18
Francesca Reece - Voyeur; Glass Houses
Christopher Isherwood - Goodbye to Berlin
Patrick Modiano - Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas; Missing Person
Norman Lewis - Voices of the Old Sea

Other links
Hilary Mantel - A Past Recaptured (2001, The New York Review of Books)