The Dog at Clambercrown - Softcover

Brooke, Jocelyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1509855815 ISBN 13: 9781509855810

Publisher: Policy Press, 2017

Synopsis

The Dog at Clambercrown takes its name from a mysterious pub - seductive and frightening, never visited, only heard of - that fascinates Brooke's child narrator in this beautiful and utterly original work of autobiographical fiction. Both a journey through Europe and a return to the forbidden kingdoms of a Kentish childhood, the novel interweaves past and present as Brooke, responding to the magical potency of "Abroad", summons the obsessions and terrors of his youth, and conjures an almost pagan vision of the English countryside - even as he sits down to tea with the Sicilian mafia. First published in 1955, The Dog at Clambercrown epitomises what Anthony Powell termed as Brooke's unique genre of "reminiscence lightly touched with fiction". Disarmingly clever, deliciously opinionated and irrepressibly amusing, this neglected classic of gay literature is ripe for rediscovery. 'One of the most interesting and talented of contemporary writers' - Anthony Powell 'He is subtle as the devil' - John Betjeman 'Here is a writer possessed by the magic-the voodoo-of childhood' ­- New Statesman

About this title

About the Author:

Jocelyn Brooke was born in 1908 on the south coast and educated at Bedales and Worcester College, Oxford. He worked in London for a while, then in the family wine-merchants in Folkestone, Kent. In 1939, Brooke enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and reenlisted after the war as a Regular. The critical success of The Military Orchid (1948), the first volume of his autobiographical Orchid trilogy, provided the opportunity to buy himself out, and he immediately settled down to write, publishing some fifteen titles between 1948 and 1955, including the successive volumes of the trilogy, A Mine of Serpents (1949) and The Goose Cathedral (1950). His other published work includes two volumes of poetry, the novels The Image of a Drawn Sword (1950) and The Dog at Clambercrown (1955), as well as some technical works on botany. A perceptive reviewer, Brooke wrote critiques of Aldous Huxley, Elizabeth Bowen, Ronald Firbank, and John Betjeman. He also introduced and edited the journals and published works of Denton Welch. Jocelyn Brooke died in 1966.

Review:

Mr Jocelyn Brooke is one of the most interesting and talented of contemporary writers . . . we are left as delighted by the hundredth performance as we were at the first. It is magic-conjuring-of which we never tire: an example of what is called `art'. -- Anthony Powell * Punch * . . . In this fourth autobiographical-fictional itinerary, the ways are more enchanted and twisty, the scent keener than ever. Here is a writer possessed by the magic-the voodoo-of childhood . . . Mr. Brooke is a pleasure to read-a highly individual pleasure. -- G. W. Stonier * New Statesman * A fugitive form of reminiscence, and often disarmingly clever, this has a very special appeal at an aesthetic-intellectual level * Kirkus Reviews *

About this edition

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1509855815
• ISBN 13: 9781509855810
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302