Firbank is an example of a timeless author who should not be forgotten, because he is utterly unique.

The Independent

Ronald Firbank

Ronald Firbank (1886–1926) was an acclaimed British novelist whose work was championed by E. M. Forster and Evelyn Waugh. He attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge, although he left before receiving a degree. He traveled extensively through Spain, Italy, the Middle East, and North Africa. He died of lung disease while in Rome in 1926.

cover image of the book Caprice

Caprice

The stage-struck daughter of an English rural dean runs off with the family plate to London and a theatrical career–only to die tragically by the bite of a mousetrap in her moment of triumph as a sensational Juliet.

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cover image of the book Three More Novels

Three More Novels

Three More Novels is a series of animated tableaux filled with beautiful, eccentric women pursuing pleasure in the most wicked, perverse, irresponsible ways, written by an extraordinary Englishman who dared to be as original in his books as he was in his life. So cleverly and wittily are the stories told that we sense we belong in the charmed café society of post-1918 Britain, and life seems, as Ernest Jones says in his critical introduction, “a Nirvana in which homosexuals are the ultimate chic and in which… almost everyone turns out to be at least bi-sexual.” In Vainglory, Mrs. Shamefoot, who “almost compels a tear,” embraces the quest for a cathedral stained-glass window “that should be a miracle of violet glass.” In Inclinations, Miss Brookomore, filled with longing for her companion, the “sunny” Miss Mabel Collins, travels to Greece where Mabel, rather treacherously, acquires a husband and baby. And in Caprice, Miss Sinquier flees her rural parents and the comfort of her black slippers (“all over little pearls with filigree butterflies that trembled above her toes”) to pursue an acting career in bohemian London. To quote Mrs. Shamefoot describing a novelist clearly meant to be Firbank: “He has such a strange, peculiar style. His work calls to mind a frieze with figures of varying heights trotting all the same way. If one should by chance turn about it’s usually merely to stare or to sneer or to make a grimace. Only occasionally his figures care to beckon. And they seldom really touch." Originally published in 1951, Three More Novels by Ronald Firbank is now reissued as a New Directions Paperbook.

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cover image of the book Five Novels

Five Novels

“A person who dislikes Ronald Firbank," quipped W. H. Auden, “may, for all I know, possess some admirable quality, but I do not wish ever to see him again.” Edmund Wilson pronounced him “one of the finest writers of his period.” Part high camp comedy of manners and part fairy tale, Five Novels by Ronald Firbank (1886-1926) is introduced by Osbert Sitwell. Firbank lived a life of exquisite, if lonely, leisure. He composed all his novels on postcards in his countless hotel rooms, always lavish with flowers. His moves were impulsive––“Tomorrow I go to Haiti. They say the President is a Perfect Dear!” ran one telegram to a surprised friend. At a dinner party given in his honor, the pathologically shy author refused to consume anything more than a single pea. His no less eccentric creations, Parvula de Panzoust and her guest Eulalia Thoroughfare of Valmouth, dine on “salmis of cocks’-combs saignant with Béchamel sauce.” In The Artificial Princess, a queen with a passion for motoring roars about her realm for hours with her crown on. The Flower Beneath the Foot, Prancing Nigger, and Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli are also included in this volume. “If only,” concludes Sitwell, “we might have the joy of reading a new book from his pen, a book that would be so deliciously unlike any others in the world save his own.” It is hoped that this collection will bring more readers that extraordinary experience.

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Firbank is an example of a timeless author who should not be forgotten, because he is utterly unique.

The Independent

The novels of Ronald Firbank are, for me, an absolute test. A person who dislikes them… may, for all I know, possess some admirable quality, but I do not wish ever to see him again.

W.H. Auden
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