Albert Angelo

Johnson, B. S.

ISBN 10: 0811210030 / ISBN 13: 9780811210034

Published by Constable, London, 1964

About this Item

Small 8vo 7½" - 8" tall; 180 pages; [SIGNED] 1964 Constable. HC 1st edition. Bound in publisher s black paper-covered boards, spine lettered in silver. Light rubbing to surfaces, mild bumping at tips, and slight crimping to spine ends; spine titling a trifle dulled, but sound and presentable. Contents clean. With the publisher s characteristic die-cut windows to pp. 149 152. Signed and inscribed by the author on the title-page "for Barny" [? ]. Front endpaper with distributor stamps of John Farquharson Ltd. (London) and A/S Bookman (Copenhagen) , indicating routing for export. Johnson s second published novel, a landmark of the 1960s British avant-garde. Best remembered for its formal daring typographical play, direct authorial intrusion, and the literal cutting through of pages to let the reader "see ahead" an emblem of Johnson s conviction that conventional narrative was a lie. Uncommon signed. Lacks wrapper. VG-; Signed by Author.

Seller Inventory # 57840

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Albert Angelo
• Publisher: Constable, London
• Publication Date: 1964
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811210030
• ISBN 13: 9780811210034
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Very Good-
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature
  • Signed by Author
  • Modern 1st editions

About this title

Synopsis

Why don’t you take a permanent job, Albert? You’re twenty-eight now, you know,” his mother remarks when he goes on his weekend duty visit home. Albert Angelo is by vocation an architect and only by economic necessity working as a substitute teacher. He had thought he was, if not dedicated, at least competent. But now, on temporary assignments in schools located in the tough neighborhoods of London, Albert feels ineffectual. He is failing as a teacher and failing to fulfill himself as an architect. And then, too, he is pained by the memory of a failed love affair. “I’m trying to say something not tell a story telling stories is telling lies and I want to tell the truth,” Johnson insists in the penultimate section of the book when his authorial voice intervenes. Or, as Johan Thielman writes in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, “Johnson is trying to use fiction to reproduce life as closely as possible and, in his inevitable failure to succeed, he extends our notion of the possibilities of the novel…he made a body of work which remains fascinating, not in the least because he achieved one of his main ambitions: to be totally honest…His novels are the moving traces of a passionate devotion to and pursuit of his truth.”

About the Author

B. S. Johnson (Bryan Stanley Johnson) (1933-1973) was an English experimental novelist, poet, literary critic and filmmaker. He was born into a working-class family, was evacuated from London during World War II, and left school at sixteen to work as an accountant. However, he taught himself Latin in the evenings, and with this knowledge, managed to pass the university exam for King's College London. After he graduated Johnson wrote a series of increasingly experimental and often acutely personal novels. A critically acclaimed film adaptation of the last of the novels published while he was alive, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry was released in 2000. Increasingly depressed by his failure to succeed commercially, and beset by family problems, Johnson committed suicide.