B007TB5SP0 EBOK (52 page)
Authors: Ronald Firbank
1
. This piece was originally published in a different form as ‘Our Butterflies and Beetles’,
New York Herald Tribune
, 5 May 1929; it first appeared in its current form in
Abinger Harvest
(London: Edward Arnold, 1936), pp. 115–21.
2
. Joseph Addison (1672–1719): poet, playwright, politician and co-founder of the
Spectator
journal.
3
. David Garnett (1892–1981): prolific author and bisexual member of the Bloomsbury circle, whose 1922 fantasy novel
Lady into Fox
describes how Sylvia Tebrick, the 24-year-old heroine, suddenly turns into a fox while walking in the woods with her husband.
4
.
The Water Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby
(1863): a popular children’s novel by Charles Kingsley (1819–75); J. M. Barrie (1860–1937): children’s author, whose play
Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up
(1904) and novel
Peter and Wendy
(1911) achieved global renown.
5
.
The Three Mulla-Mulgars
(1910): animal fantasy tale for children by Walter de la Mare (1873–1956).
6
. Arthur Waley’s introduction – which first appeared in Duckworth’s 1929 edition of
The Works of Ronald Firbank
– is reproduced in Meryvn Horder (ed.),
Ronald Firbank: Memoirs and Critiques
(London: Duckworth, 1977), pp. 166–74.
7
.
Yellow Book
(1894–7): literary quarterly edited by Henry Harland, specializing in decadent and aesthetic writings;
Under the Hill
: unfinished novel by Aubrey Beardsley (1872–98) with illustrations by the author, first published in the
Savoy
(1896) and as a book by John Lane (1904).
8
. The biretta is a four-cornered square liturgical cap, topped by a tassel; stays are a type of corset.
9
. Max Beerbohm (1872–1956): essayist, parodist, novelist and illustrator who had known Oscar Wilde, and is best known today for his 1911 Oxford campus novel
Zuleika Dobson
.
10
.
Thesmophoriazusae or The Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria
(411
BC
) is a comedy by Aristophanes (c.448–380
BC
).
11
. This was widely supposed, since Firbank had reported plans to travel to Haiti. But he never went, and drew instead on his time in Cuba and Jamaica for the content of
Sorrow in Sunlight
. Forster refers to the book here by its then customary title.
12
. William Shakespeare,
Henry IV, Part One
, Act I, Scene ii.
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Vainglory
first published 1915; revised edition published 1925
Inclinations
first published 1916; reissued with a revised
Part II
,
Chapter IV
, 1929
Caprice
first published 1917
This collected edition (using the 1925 edition of
Vainglory
and 1929 edition of
Inclinations
) first published in Penguin Classics 2012
Introduction and editorial matter copyright © Richard Canning, 2012
Appendix 3
: ‘Ronald Firbank’ (1936) copyright 1936 by E. M. Forster
Cover: Detail from illustrated book In the bottom of my garden by Andy Warhol, lithograph, 1955 © The Andy Warhol Foundation/Corbis
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author of the introduction and editorial material has been asserted
ISBN: 978-0-14-196717-2
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