“A rebuttal to the civilized romance of Pride and Prejudice . . . The bite of sadness at the end of this surprising novel leaves a deeper gash than one expects from a book of such impeccable manners . . . Truly original.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

A Regency romance turned on its head: “Tense, touching, human, dire, and funny.” —Elizabeth Bowen

First published in 1953, Troy Chimneys masquerades as the private memoirs of Miles Lufton, a minor politician in Regency England. Lufton—wry, worldly, and self-deprecating—recounts the struggle between two selves: the man of feeling and the ruthless social climber. As he maneuvers his way into love and power, the duel between his personalities threatens to undo him.

Kennedy’s ingenious construction—an epistolary pastiche of letters, journals, and “found” documents—makes the reader both detective and confidant. The result is a tragicomic confession, a novel of manners with Austenian wit, but one that refuses Austen’s consolations. For as Anita Brookner observed, in Kennedy’s late style “virtue does not triumph, patience is not rewarded, people do not receive their just deserts.”

At once playful and penetrating, satirical and poignant, Troy Chimneys is both a brilliant recreation of Regency style and a modern exploration of ambition, duplicity, and moral compromise.