General Fiction – H S Ede, John Eskow, Andrew Field, Timothy Findley & Ronald Firbank

Surprise, another post, this one with a selection of a few interesting singles and the works of Timothy Findley and Ronald Firbank.

First up Savage Messiah, a biography of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska by H S Ede. It was made into a film by Ken Russell in 1972.

John Eskow’s novel Smokestack Lightning is one of those rare novels centred round rock n roll, a bit of an oddity. This edition published by Delacorte in 1980.

The Lost Chronicle of Edward De Vere by Andrew Field is another odd tome, a fictionalised account of the life of Edward De Vere the 17th Earl of Oxford, popularly considered to be one of the main candidates speculated to be the author of Shakespeare’s plays.

I have several novels by Canadian author Timothy Findley, three of which are displayed here. The Last of the Crazy People was his first novel, published in 1967 followed by The Butterfly Plague (1969).

I recently reread The Telling of Lies. It’s a rather unusual crime mystery set at a seaside resort for the rich and famous.

And finally for this post the weird and wonderful collected writings of Ronald Firbank, writer of whimsical and eccentric tales of decadence. He was pretty eccentric himself being once described as attending a dinner party and partaking of only a pea. The photo on the cover of Five Novels is a portrait of Countess Castiglione.

Next – a few more stray “F” authors and Jane Gardam