Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence

Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence - Hardcover

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Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence
  • Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence
Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence - Hardcover

Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence - Hardcover

by Avril Horner
$39.95
$39.95
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Hardcover $39.95 Paperback $21.55

Book Overview

The extraordinary twentieth-century writer Barbara Comyns led a life as captivating as the narratives she spun. This pioneering biography reveals the journey of a woman who experienced hardship and single-motherhood before the age of thirty but went on to publish a sequence of novels that are unique in the English language.

Comyns turned her hand to many jobs in order to survive, from artist's model to restoring pianos. Hundreds of unpublished letters reveal an occasionally desperate but resourceful and witty woman whose complicated life ranged from enduring poverty when young to mixing with spivs, spies and high society. While working as a housekeeper in her mid-thirties, Comyns began transforming the bleak episodes of her life into compelling fictions streaked with surrealism and deadpan humour. The Vet's Daughter (1959), championed by Graham Greene, brought her fame, although her use of the gothic and macabre divided readers and reviewers.

This biography not only excavates Comyns's life but also reclaims her fiction, providing a timely reassessment of her literary contribution. It sheds new light on a remarkable author who deftly captured the complexities of human life.

Back Jacket

The extraordinary twentieth-century writer Barbara Comyns led a life as captivating as the narratives she spun. This pioneering biography reveals the journey of a woman who experienced hardship and single-motherhood before the age of thirty but went on to publish a sequence of novels that are unique in the English language.

Comyns turned her hand to many jobs in order to survive, from artist's model to restoring pianos. Hundreds of unpublished letters reveal an occasionally desperate but resourceful and witty woman whose complicated life ranged from enduring poverty when young to mixing with spivs, spies and high society. While working as a housekeeper in her mid-thirties, Comyns began transforming the bleak episodes of her life into compelling fictions streaked with surrealism and deadpan humour. The Vet's Daughter (1959), championed by Graham Greene, brought her fame, although her use of the gothic and macabre divided readers and reviewers.

This biography not only excavates Comyns's life but also reclaims her fiction, providing a timely reassessment of her literary contribution. It sheds new light on a remarkable author who deftly captured the complexities of human life.
ISBN9781526173744
Author Avril Horner
PublisherManchester University Press
GenreBiography
FormatHardcover
PublishedMarch 2024
LanguageENG- English
Pages372
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography Nonfiction

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More by Avril Horner

Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence

Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence - Hardcover

Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence - Hardcover

By Avril Horner

About Avril Horner

Avril Horner is an Emeritus Professor of English at Kingston University. She is the author or editor of numerous books, most recently Women and the Gothic with Sue Zlosnik (2016) and Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-95 with Anne Rowe (2015).

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