Books: The Autocrat at the Tea Table

BULLIVANT AND THE LAMBS (299 pp.)

/. Compton-Burnetf—Knopf ($3).

Few living authors have been deluged with the spate of homage which highbrow critics have loosed on I. Compton-Bur-nett. But as far as the general public is concerned, she might as well be dead—and not even her most passionate admirers (who include Elizabeth Bowen and Rosamund Lehmann) could fairly accuse the public of stupidity and ignorance. For all Compton-Burnett's novels (she has published eleven during the past 37 years) appear at first glance to be out of this world, artificial, aimless.

All are burdened with...