Sylvia Townsend Warner’s second novel, Mr Fortune’s Maggot, is lyrical, droll, and deeply affecting.
The Reverend Timothy Fortune, ex-clerk of the Hornsey branch of Lloyds Bank, has found his vocation: to convert the inhabitants of the remote tropical island of Fanua to Christianity. Even when everyone except for a young boy called Lueli remains indifferent to his preaching, Mr Fortune’s good spirits cannot be dampened – until one day his faith is put to a terrible test.
‘Original, elegant and hypnotically strange’ The New York Times
‘Sylvia Townsend Warner pursues the psychology of the story with beautiful accuracy’ John Carey
Surprised by Joy
It’s always strange to think how easily you might not have met that someone: a bus that arrived on time, or a last drink at the bar, and it might all have been quite different. Our meetings with...
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Recently I was given a copy of The Music at Long Verney: Twenty Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner. It was a revelation. Years ago, when I was a struggling art student, I read and loved her novels,...
Read moreFirst Class Mail
During my early years as a bookseller, much of each day’s business depended on the post: not just brown envelopes enclosing cheques or less welcome envelopes with publishers’ bills, but orders...
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