'A comic masterpiece' —Patrick Gale, Guardian. Pillar of society and stern upholder of Victorian values, god-fearing Norfolk merchant John Barnard presides over a large and largely unhappy family. This is their story—his brandy-swilling wife, their hapless offspring, and their changing fortunes—over the decades. Sylvia Townsend Warner's last novel, The Flint Anchor, gloriously overturns our ideas of history, family, and storytelling itself. "A novel created with solidity and subtlety of feeling, a fusion of warmth, wit, and quietly biting shrewdness that are reminiscent of Jane Austen." —Atlantic Review. "As a sustained work of historical imagination, it has few rivals ... one of the most acute and intelligent writers of her age." —Claire Harman.