Jane Gardam's funny and wise masterpiece, reissued with a new introduction by Nina Stibbe

Old Filth has stayed with me for years

SATHNAM SANGHERA

Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny

HILARY MANTEL

The last great book I read

RACHEL WEISZ

Gardam's masterpiece

GUARDIAN

Filth, in his heydey, was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East. Now, only the oldest QCs can remember that his nickname stood for Failed In London Try Hong Kong. Long ago, Old Filth was a Raj orphan - one of the many young children sent 'Home' from the East to be fostered and educated in England. Jane Gardam's novel tells his story, from his birth in what was then Malaya to the extremities of his old age. In doing so, she not only encapsulates a whole period from the glory days of the British Empire, through the Second World War, to the present and beyond, but also illuminates the complexities of the character known variously as Eddie, the Judge, Fevvers, Filth, Master of the Inner Temple, Teddy and Sir Edward Feathers.