The cardboard crown - Martin Boyd

Released in 1952 to wide acclaim, The Cardboard Crown was the first novel in The Langton Tetralogy; the work for which Boyd is best known. Set in Australia and England at the turn of the twentieth century, Boyd presents an unforgettable portrait of an upper middle-class family who love both countries but are not quite at home in either. At the centre of this immensely readable novel is Alice Verso, whose dynasty-founding marriage masks the inner turmoil she faces surrounding the promise of love in distant Rome, only to be discovered generations later.