The Towers of Trebizond

"'Take my camel, dear," said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return to High Mass.' Thus starts, with one of the most famous opening lines in modern English literature, Rose Macaulay's classic novel, The Towers of Trebizond. As wise, civilised and wholly entertaining as it was when first published in 1956, the novel tells the beautifully absurd story of the inimitable Aunt Dot, her niece Laurie and Father Chantry-Pigg – and of their expedition together to Turkey to explore the possibility of establishing a High Anglican mission there. Each member of the party has an additional extra-curricular motivation for making the trip: Father Chantry-Pigg wishes to meet the fanatics in residence at the top of Mount Ararat; Aunt Dot is set on the emancipation of Turkish women through wider use of the bathing hat; Laurie's object is pure pleasure …