At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

First ed. cover
Author	Alexander McCall Smith
Illustrator	Iain McIntosh
Series	Professor Dr von Igelfeld
Published	2003
Publisher	Polygon Books
Publication place	Scotland

At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances is a book by Scottish author and academic Alexander McCall Smith, relating further matters in the life of the main character, Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld.

Plot

The Professor is a troubled German academic whose life's achievement is the (fictional) book, Portuguese Irregular Verbs. The book relates details of von Igelfeld's troubled relationships with the other major characters of the book series, Professor Dr Dr (honoris causa) Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer, who work at the fictional Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, Germany.

The book consists of two longer stories. In the first story, On Being Light Blue von Igelfeld's birthday wish leads him to a four-month stint at Cambridge University where he is nonplussed by the eccentric English academics and their constant infighting. In the second story, The Villa of Reduced Circumstances, von Igelfeld unwittingly becomes embroiled in a military coup in Colombia after being invited there to receive an academic award.

Book series

This is one book of a series:

• Portuguese Irregular Verbs (1997)
• The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (2003)
• At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (2003)
• Unusual Uses for Olive Oil (2011)

External links

• Author's page at Random House publishers