Hay Fever, a comedy of bad manners, concerns a weekend with friends of the Bliss family, who have all been invited independently for a weekend at their country house near Maidenhead.

The Vortex was a controversial drama in its time, introducing drug-addiction onto the stage at a time when alcoholism was barely mentioned.

Fallen Angels, which is written for two star actresses was described as ‘degenerate’, ‘vile’, ‘obscene’, ‘shocking’ – the second half of the play is entirely taken up with an alcoholic duologue between the two women.

Easy Virtue is an elegant, laconic tribute to a lost world of drawing-room dramas, no other writer went more directly to the jugular of that moralistic, tight-lipped but fundamentally hypocritical 20s society.

Published by Methuen

358 pages

Condition; VERY GOOD – unmarked