Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Colin Wilson
- Author's preface
- Translator's preface
- Introduction
- 1 The life and personality of the author
- 2 Backgrounds, settings and places
- 3 The human world
- 4 The world of Crystalman
- 5 The Sublime world
- 6 The Violet Apple and The Witch
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Foreword by Colin Wilson
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword by Colin Wilson
- Author's preface
- Translator's preface
- Introduction
- 1 The life and personality of the author
- 2 Backgrounds, settings and places
- 3 The human world
- 4 The world of Crystalman
- 5 The Sublime world
- 6 The Violet Apple and The Witch
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
When David Lindsay died in July 1945, I doubt whether even his closest friends would have prophesied a ‘Lindsay revival’. The reason will be clear to anyone who has ever glanced into a Lindsay novel: the style is hopelessly amateurish. And there is, unfortunately, a great gulf fixed between amateur and professional writers. It is not, of course, unbridgeable – every young writer has to learn to bridge it (unless he is one of those lucky ones who is ‘born with style’). But if a writer has still not crossed it by the time he approaches middle age, then the case is hopeless. He probably lacks some quality of judgement that blinds him to his own naivety – like the extraordinary Amanda McKittrick Ros, who never realised that her novels were regarded as a joke.
But Lindsay's work somehow continued to live. Gollancz decided to reprint A Voyage to Arcturus, as part of a series of ‘rare imaginative fiction’, which included two other ‘amateur’ writers, E. H. Visiak and M. P. Shiel. I doubt whether Gollancz regarded Arcturus as an unrecognised masterpiece; if he had, he would have agreed to reprint it a quarter of a century earlier, when it would have done Lindsay's reputation some good. I think it more probable that he had noted the increasing popularity of fantasy – works like The Lord of the Rings and Peake's Gormenghast books – and decided that he could hardly lose.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Life and Works of David Lindsay , pp. xi - xviiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981