Set in a world of decadence, greed, snobbery, and cruelty, Edward St Aubyn's brilliant short novels paint a harrowing and darkly hilarious portrait of the English upper class. Patrick's story of abuse, addiction, and recovery follows him across decades of his life in settings ranging from the Melrose family's chateau in the South of France to the gritty streets of lower Manhattan to a riotously lavish high-society party at an English country house.

We first meet Patrick as a sensitive five-year-old terrorized by the sadism of his domineering father and the succeeding volumes give us glimpses of his life as he moves through drug-addicted young adulthood into middle age and parenthood, in an ongoing struggle for emotional stability that is both comic and heartbreaking. The stunning final volume, At Last, takes place over the single day of a momentous funeral, and offers Patrick the possibility of finding a measure of peace.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.