Joyce Cary

An artist tramp meets only hostility and persecution when he attempts to paint a vast mural of The Creation

The Horse's Mouth

Sara Monday looks back on her life as a domestic servant and her relationship with the painter Gulley Jimson and lawyer Tom Wilcher.

Herself Surprised

Tom Wilcher, a rich Englishman who is treated as a foolish old man by his young relatives, looks back on his life and his unfulfilled spiritual yearnings even as he faces death

To be a Pilgrim

Johnson, a young native in the British civil service, is a clerk to Rudbeck, Assistant District Officer in Nigeria, and imagines himself to be a very important cog of the King's government. He is amusingly tolerant of his fellow Africans, thinking them uncivilized; he is obsessed with the idea of bringing "civilization" to this small jungle station

Mister Johnson

Widely varied in every way, these thirty-four stories are united by their narrative brilliance. They range from ironic meditation on good and evil to joyful celebration of human creativity. They are set in Africa, in England, in the present or the past, in a child's microcosm, a Nigerian bush-station, a businessman's home, a soldier's night under the stars. Their characters are as various as their settings - devoted mothers, children practicing to be grownups or in rebellion, harassed men trying to reconcile dream and reality. In length and technique they show the same extraordinary variety. The two long narratives of African life contrast with the miniatures such as 'Romance', the only short story that Time magazine had hitherto published.

Spring Song and Other Stories

Herself surprised: Beginning her prison sentence, Sara Monday looks back on the foolish mistakes and changing fortunes that led to her incarceration.

To be a Pilgrim. The Horse's Mouth

First Trilogy: Herself Surprised

Mr Preedy is an evangelist and faith healer of extraordinary gifts--a reformed scoundrel and seducer, self-confessed, variously hailed as madman, fraud and humbug, and truly dedicated man of God. By rousing the forces of orthodoxy in a parish in the heart of London, he stirs up a storm that involves the embattled local press and leads to a general dusting off of personal beliefs. Mr Preedy lives imaginatively, by the faith and the power of the word, in a world which compels every individual to exercise the privilege of choice. He is a free man, free to be good or evil.

A Novel

The Captive and the Free

This volume contains all Joyce Cary's short stories published under his own name.

Spring Song, and Other Stories

Excerpt from Charley Is My Darling Suddenly a young woman came out Of the farmhouse door, and exclaimed in a soft sing-song voice: Why, Charley, what ever is the matter? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Charley Is My Darling (Classic Reprint)

The charming and larcenous Gulley Jimson has an insatiable genius for creation and a no less remarkable appetite for destruction. Is he a great artist? a has-been? or an exhausted, drunken ne’er-do-well? Originally published in 1944, The Horse’s Mouth is acclaimed Irish author Joyce Cary’s third instalment in his First Trilogy and sequel to Herself Surprised (1941) and To Be A Pilgrim (1942). It follows the adventures of Gulley Jimson, an artist who would exploit his friends and acquaintances to earn a quid. Similar to the first two books in the First Trilogy, events are told in the first-person narration and thus from the central character’s point of view. Cary’s novel also uses Gulley’s unique perspective to comment on the social and political events of the time, making Gulley Jimson one of the best-known characters in 20th-century fiction.

The Horses’ Mouth

The Horse's Mouth, the third and most celebrated volume of Joyce Cary's First Trilogy, is perhaps the finest novel ever written about an artist. Its painter hero, the charming and larcenous Gulley Jimson, has an insatiable genius for creation and a no less remarkable appetite for destruction. Is he a great artist? a has-been? or an exhausted, drunken ne'er-do-well? He is without doubt a visionary, and as he criss-crosses London in search of money and inspiration the world as seen though his eyes appears with a newly outrageous and terrible beauty.

Joyce Cary wrote two trilogies, or 'triptychs' as he later called them, and both are in Faber Finds. The first comprises Herself Surprised (1941), To Be a Pilgrim (1942) and The Horse's Mouth (1944). The Horse's Mouth is a portrait of an artistic temperament. Its protagonist, Gulley Gimson, is an impoverished painter who scorns conventional good behaviour. If a bad citizen, he is a good artist, so wholly preoccupied with his art that he is willing to endure any privation. For Gulley there is but one morality: to be a painter. 'Joyce Cary is an important and exciting writer ... To use Tennyson's phrase, he is a Lord of Language ... if you like rich writing full of gusto and accurate original character drawing, you will get it from The Horse's Mouth.' John Betjeman, Daily Herald

The horse's mouth : a novel

Art and Reality

Aissa, a frank and lively Fulani girl, lives in the district of Yanrin, Nigeria. A new and ardent convert to Christianity, she is feared and mistrusted by the local community who brand her a witch. Yanrun is suffering a severe and prolonged drought and rioting breaks out between the different religious communities over whose God has the power to bring rain. Aissa is torn between her Christian faith and deep respect for her people and their ways. The clash is finally resolved in a moment of great passion, sacrifice and triumph.

Aissa Saved

A Fearful Joy

Joyce Cary wrote two trilogies, or triptychs as he later preferred to call them. The first comprises: Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth. In the months before his death, Tom Wilcher, who is looked after by his niece and nephew (both concerned for their inheritance), lives his life over again in the house in which his childhood was spent. The religious family life of his youth is contrasted with the rootlessness of his heirs. The character of the old man is seen through his attitude to his family and the way in which he tries to make them feel the value of a family tradition. 'A remarkable novel ... An original attempt to embody a complete vision of life, and it contains scenes as vivid and beautiful as anything else in modern fiction.' The Listener 'Its excellence lies in the great skill with which a character is drawn in all its variety, in the minor portraits of members of his family, with their subsidiary stories, and in the unhesitating and illuminating detail of half a century of English life.' Observer

A drab, drear-looking house, Dunamara squats on the Donegal coast across the lough from Derry. It is a rough, windswept setting, but for six-year-old Evelyn Corner - brought here each year to holiday with his brothers, sisters and cousins - it is an enchanted place.

Joyce Cary

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