Blindness (NYRB Classics) - Softcover

Green, Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1681370662 ISBN 13: 9781681370668

Publisher: NYRB Classics, 2017

Synopsis

Henry Green's first novel, and the book that began his career as a master of British modernism

Blindness—Henry Green’s first novel, begun while he was still at Eton and finished before he left university—is the story of John Haye, a young student with literary airs. It starts with an excerpt from his diary, brimming with excitement and affectation and curiosity about life and literature. Then a freak accident robs John of his sight, plunging him into despair. Forced to live with his high-handed, horsey stepmother in the country, John begins a weird dalliance with a girl named Joan, leading to a new determination. Blindness is the curse of youth and inexperience and love and ambition, but blindness, John will discover, can also be the source of vision.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Henry Green's ability to expose the hypocrisy of the British middle class through the deflections and half-truths of their speech has made him one of the most admired and imitated of the high-modernists, garnering praise from the likes of W.H. Auden, Eudora Welty, Anthony Burgess and John Updike.

About the Author:

Henry Green (1905–1973) was the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke. Born near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, England, he was educated at Eton and Oxford before working in his family’s engineering firm for most of his life while also writing novels. During World War II, Green served on the London Fire Brigade. He wrote nine novels between 1926 and 1952.

Daniel Mendelsohn is a classicist and nonfiction writer. His books include The New York Time bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, and the collection Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture, published by New York Review Books. He teaches at Bard College.

About this edition

• Publisher: NYRB Classics
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1681370662
• ISBN 13: 9781681370668
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240