Carnival

The moving romance of dancer Jenny Pearl: a story which helped establish Mackenzie among the foremost novelists of his generation

Jenny Pearl, a dancer, falls in love with Maurice Avery, a young dilettante who leaves her when she refuses to become his mistress. Despairingly, she falls into a loveless marriage with Trewhella, a Cornish farmer who becomes insanely jealous when Avery reappears on the scene. Vivid, moving, and ultimately tragic, this book was first published in 1912 to wide critical acclaim, helping to establish Mackenzie as one of the foremost British novelists of his generation. It has since been filmed three times and adapted for the stage and as an opera.

Compton Mackenzie (1833-1972) was a writer and Scottish nationalist who published almost 100 books across a range of different genres, including fiction, history, biography, literary criticism, satire, children's stories, and poetry. He is perhaps best known for two comedies set in Scotland, The Monarch of the Glen and Whisky Galore.