Denham Dobie has been brought up in Andorra by her father, a retired clergyman. On his death, she is snatched from this reclusive life and thrown into the social whirl of London by her sophisticated relatives. Denham, however, provides a candid response to the niceties of ‘civilised’ behaviour. Crewe Train is Macaulay’s wittiest social satire. The reactions of Denham to the manners and modes of the highbrow circle in which she finds herself provide a devastating – and very funny – social commentary as well as a moving story.This bitingly funny, elegantly written comedy of manners is as absorbing and entertaining today as on the book’s first publication in 1926.