Sinister Street, vol. 1

A coming-of-age narrative follows Michael Fane from an imaginative childhood into adolescence and early manhood, portraying the domestic scenes, schooling, and social encounters that shape his sensibilities. The prose balances intimate psychological detail with vivid social and physical settings, tracking his literary and musical appetites, evolving friendships and early attractions, and growing awareness of class and convention. Recurring motifs include education, aesthetic formation, and the tensions between private longing and public expectation, and the structure unfolds in discrete episodes that map a prolonged moral and artistic apprenticeship.