Fairness is the fifth novel in Ferdinand Mount’s six-book Chronicle of Modern Twilight, which makes up the autobiography of Aldous (Gus) Cotton
Ferdinand Mount
Sir Ferdinand Mount – who prefers just Ferdinand – is better known as a political commentator than novelist
Fairness was the fifth volume of his six-novel Chronicle of Modern Twilight series. Mount has run a career as an upper-echelon journalist alongside being an author. He was head of the No.10 Policy Unit under Margaret Thatcher and has written as a columnist for the Sunday Times as well as being a former editor of the Times Literary Supplement. The Man Who Rode Ampersand, the first novel in Mount’s series, appeared in 1975, and the sequence led to the author being likened to Anthony Powell, his uncle by marriage. Fairness, the story of Gus Cotton, a minor civil servant, and his unrequited love affair with Helen, is told with a keen eye for period detail.