Vestal Fire

Compton Mackenzie

ISBN 10: 0701205733 / ISBN 13: 9780701205737

Published by Random House (UK) December 1987, 1987

About this Item

Shelf and spine wear -- reader's copy. Pages yellowing from age.

Seller Inventory # 300023

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Vestal Fire
• Publisher: Random House (UK) December 1987
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701205733
• ISBN 13: 9780701205737
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Condition: Used - Acceptable
• Seller catalogs:
  • Classic

About this title

Synopsis

For a short time before the First World War, Compton Mackenzie lived on Capri, 'island of pleasure' as it has been called. The stay was fruitful, resulting in two 'romans a clefs', Vestal Fire and Extraordinary Women, published in 1927 and 1928 respectively. These see Compton Mackenzie at his satirical best. Both are reissued in Faber Finds. The island of Capri, in the early twentieth-century, was a remarkably tolerant place providing a haven in particular for those with the sort of sexual appetites that were banned elsewhere. Homosexuals, both male and female, retreated to Capri and many were to find themselves appearing in fictional guise in Compton Mackenzie's two novels. Narrative drive is not what you will find here, instead there is delicious and wicked social comedy that exuberantly charts the endless feuds and machinations.

About the Author

Compton Mackenzie (1883-1972) was a writer with a huge output, over ninety books. He wrote too much, but novels like Sinister Street, satires like Vestal Fire and Extraordinary Women and entertainments like Whisky Galore deserve to survive. He was born in West Hartlepool, educated at St Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford (his upbringing is vividly described in Sinister Street). During the First World War he became Director of the Aegean Intelligence Service. He had wide interests: he co-founded The Gramophone magazine in 1923: he was President of the Siamese Cat Club: he was a Scottish nationalist. He also liked islands, living on Capri and Barra, and was lampooned for this by D. H. Lawrence, appearing as Mr Cathcart in the short story 'The Man Who Loved Islands'. He thought of suing but, in the end, ticked D. H. Lawrence off for suggesting cowslips could grow in a granite landscape; they prefer lime.