Items related to Herself Surprised
Synopsis
“There seems to be more truth of human nature, a profounder understanding of the springs of action than in any novel I have read for a long time.”
L P Hartley
“The life story of one of the most engaging and subtly realised heroines of recent fiction.”
Atlantic Monthly
“A remarkable novel... beautifully done.”
Country Life
“Acute, balanced, and at times brilliantly pure narrative, with a delicacy of insight that adorns everything he touches... A very live and true story.”
Times Literary Supplement
Herself Surprised is the story of Sara Monday, a former housemaid who tells of “her grand days” and of all her “coming down days since.” Looking back from a prison cell on a life that covers the first half of the 20th century, Sara introduces a gallery of vivid characters: her timid and doting husband, Mr. Monday; Rozzie, her hard-boiled friend; her various lovers including the brilliant but dangerously violent painter Gully Jimson and the miserly lawyer Tom Wilcher. In Sara, an irrepressible, sexually magnetic woman, at once manipulated and generous to a fault, Cary has created a complex and wonderfully realised character - one of the most memorable in twentieth-century fiction.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Joyce Cary was born in 1888 into an old Anglo-Irish family and educated at Clifton. He studied art, first in Edinburgh and then in Paris, before going up to Trinity College, Oxford, in 1909 to read law. On coming down he served as a Red Cross orderly in the Balkan War of 1912-13, the inspiration for Memoir of the Bobotes, before joining the Nigerian Political Service.
He served in the Nigeria Regiment during the First World War, was wounded while fighting in the Cameroons, and returned to civil duty in Nigeria in 1917 as a district officer. His time in Africa provided the inspiration for his first four novels. Though he settled in Oxford as a full-time writer in 1920, it was not until 1932 that his first book was published. At the time of his death in 1957, he was recognised as one of the leading novelists in the world.
Cary is probably best known as a novelist and especially for Mister Johnson and ‘The First Triptych’ (Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse’s Mouth) in which the three main protagonists narrate their interlocking experiences and reveal their contrasting personalities. However he was also a fine short story writer, essayist and poet.
Review
Mr. Cary...has actuality like Defoe, humor and energy like Dickens, hand-made prose and improvisation like both these great writers. -- New York Times
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarper & Brothers
- Publication date1941
- ISBN 10 071810174X
- ISBN 13 9780718101749
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages216
- Rating
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Herself Surprised
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Former library book; Missing dust jacket; Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.95. Seller Inventory # G071810174XI5N11
Quantity: 1 available
Stock Image
Herself Surprised
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Missing dust jacket; Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.95. Seller Inventory # G071810174XI5N01
Quantity: 1 available