Compton Mackenzie was one of the most prolific British authors of the twentieth century. His first book was published when he was in his mid-twenties and his last when he was nearly ninety. In fact, between 1907 and 1971 Compton Mackenzie produced at least 100 books, nearly half of which are novels. Most of these fictions are frothy "entertainments," but some deserve far more serious critical attention than they have received. Although Mackenzie wrote compulsively and for money, he was a writer of consistent integrity who, "at his best," as Edmund Wilson once noted, was also "a fine artist."

Mackenzie's was a privileged childhood, a charmed life. He was the eldest son of Edward Compton and the stunning Virginia Bateman, two of the most successful and respected actors of the late Victorian era. As a child, he exhibited a Macaulay-like precocity: he read at two and a half and studied Latin...