General Fiction – Penelope Fitzgerald, Nina Fitzpatrick, Ronald Frame, Jane Gardam

Penelope Fitzgerald is a Booker winning author who died in 2000. She was related to notable people. Her father Edmund Knox was editor of Punch magazine 1932-1949, her uncle was Bletchley Park cryptographer Dilly Knox and her other uncle was Ronald Knox, noted English theologian, priest and crime writer.

I must admit I knew none of the above facts until I looked it up just now. I have only one of Penelope Fitzgerald's novels, Innocence, an historical novel set in the 1950s.

Fables of the Irish Intelligentsia by Nina Fitzpatrick is one of those odd and unusual books that you occasionally stumble upon. It is also a very amusing book, being both witty and outrageous. It owes a lot to the writings of Flann O’Brien.

Ronald Frame is not an author you hear much about these days, but he was and probably still is quite prolific. He has been described on the name linked website as belonging “to that select group of male novelists who write almost exclusively from the female point of view; indeed he has been described as the poet of thé dansant, obsessed with the minutiae of women's lives”

I have a number of his novels, which I have read once. Curiously I have never felt tempted to reread them.

I have a pretty complete collection of Jane Gardam’s novels for adults, though she has written many for children as well. She is one of my favourite writers, an author whose books I purchase as soon as they are published; these days at least. Her books are universally excellent with her characteristic gentle and satiric prose and sharp character studies – she is a great writer.

The majority of her books in my collection are Abacus paperbacks…

I seem to be missing God on the Rocks, hopefully not forever and I do have a copy of The Summer After the Funeral in a penguin/puffin edition somewhere.

The following are hard cover first editions.

Next – Che Guevara and various “H” authors including Hesse.

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

General Fiction – Aleister Crowley, Robertson Davies, Lisa St Aubin de Teran Del Piombo, Nigel Dennis and Francesca Duranti

Apologies for the long silence and hiatus between posts, but expect more frequent updates from now on as I’ve retired from work and finally my time is my own.

So to welcome the new year, the peculiar and purportedly autobiographical Diary of A Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley, this edition by Samuel Weiser Inc  was published in 1970. One chapter is memorable for being entitled A Heroin Heroine.

 

Quite a different kettle of fish is Canadian author Robertson Davies, who is an old favourite of mine. I present for your bibliographic pleasure several of his works…

Omnibus editions of his first two great trilogies The Salterton Trilogy and The Deptford Trilogy in King Penguin editions

…and the second volume of The Cornish Trilogy, The Lyre of Orpheus  in an advanced reading copy. I have the other two volumes in hard cover editions and have written about them previously.

Lisa St Aubin de Teran is described on Wikipedia as an autobiographical author and memoirist and is quite prolific. Her first novel Keepers of the House won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1982. She has obviously led an interesting life. I used to collect her books regularly, obviously being impressed with Keepers of the House, though have over the past two decades failed to keep up.

Here are the three novels I’ve so far located on my bookshelf.

Back to a druggy theme, Fuzz Against Junk & The Hero Maker by Akbar Del Piombo  is a sort of novelty book, termed a collage novel, an early form of the graphic novel.

Nigel Dennis’ Cards of Identity is a “scathing satire of psychology, identity theory and class prejudice..” and from what I can recall was quite an enjoyable novel when I read it way back when.

And finally for this entry two books by Italian writer Francesca Duranti. The House on Moon Lake is a kind of literary ghost story and Happy Ending is a pastoral piece.

Next - “E” & “F” authors including Timothy Findlay and Ronald Firbank

General Fiction – John Crowley

This is a timely entry, as today I received an update on the status of the Little, Big 25th Anniversary edition, a book I have been keenly anticipating for over five years.

It seems, according to the latest newsletter, that publication of this splendid edition is not far off, and I will soon have in my hands probably one of the most beautiful books ever published - as attested by Greer Gilman on her live journal.

Speaking of Little, Big I can attest that I have a dinky di, true blue, genuine first edition of the novel, first published in 1981 in a Bantam Trade Paperback edition. It’s rather the worse for wear – it has been in my possession for almost 30 years, and read many times, not to mention loaned out on several occasions – but it hasn’t fallen apart. As much as I am longing to reread it, I’ve sworn to myself that I will do so when the 25th Anniversary edition arrives.

Little, Big is of course John Crowley’s best known work, but equally worthy is his marvellous Aegypt Quartet which I acquired piecemeal over the twenty years it was written.

Firstly Aegypt, published in a Gollancz paperback in1988, and Love & Sleep, in a Bantam trade paperback in 1995.

A long wait resulted in my purchasing hard cover first editions of Daemonomania, published by Bantam in August 2000 and the final book, Endless Things published in 2007 by Small Beer Press.

In between the publication of Daemonomania and Endless Things I acquired first editions of The Translator (2002) and Lord Byron’s Novel – The Evening Land (2005) both published by William Morrow and both fine novels in their own right.

John Crowley’s latest novel is his wonderful re-creation of the lives of those who worked in a world war II aircraft factory, Four Freedoms, published in 2009 by William Morrow.

And finally to complete my John Crowley collection, Novelties & Souvenirs, Collected Short Fiction, published in 2004 by Harper Perennial

Next – the other Crowley and Robertson Davies

General Fiction – Carey, Carson, Carter, Chute & Colette

Though my head is still somewhere in William Gibson land after finishing his latest fiction Zero History this morning, I will endeavour to distract my mind and resume with more offerings on this blog in the general fiction category.

Firstly, Edward Carey’s wonderful and strange Observatory Mansions.

Closely followed by that other more famous Carey, Peter Carey’s 1988 Booker winning novel Oscar & Lucinda.

Twisted Kicks by Tom Carson is one of the first and best rock n roll novels. There have not been many written at all. Published in 1981 my paperback copy of the novel is an Arena edition published in 1984.

Now on to more of my Angela Carter collection, mostly Virago paperbacks.

Carolyn Chute is an American novelist and political activist. Her best known novel is The Beans of Egypt Maine. This King Penguin Edition has a wonderful cover in a primitive/naive style,

And finally, The Tender Shoot a collection of stories by French novelist Colette translated by Antonia White. I was a great fan of Colette in my youth and have many of her books in old Penguin editions which I’ll get round to displaying later. This edition was published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux in the 1970s.

Next – John Crowley