Richard Mason

'The adventures of adolescence had taught Piet Barol that he was extremely attractive to most women and to many men. He was old enough to be pragmatic about this advantage...' Piet Barol is an alluring and intelligent young man who has escaped his drab existence, living with his father in the university town of Leiden, and moved to Amsterdam to take up a job at a stunning mansion in the city's 'Gilded Curve'. He has been employed by the extremely wealthy Vermeulen-Sickerts family to tutor their son Egbert, a boy with prodigious musical talent who has not set foot outside for a year and a half. Piet soon attracts the attentions of Constance and Louisa, the boy's two sisters, and their mother Jacobina who has been living in a sexless marriage since her husband made a pledge to God. Piet is determined to find a way of gaining entry to high society, through the family, although he must also retain the good will of his fellow servants. Piet finds many ways to pursue his pleasure-seeking ways, but when he seduces - or is seduced by - Jacobina, the future he has been so carefully building could vanish...

History of a Pleasure Seeker

Penguin Books reintroduces the timeless story of the love affair between a British artist and a Chinese prostitute. Robert is t he only resident of the Nam Kok hotel not renting his room by the hour when he meets Suzie at the bar. She becomes his muse and they fall in love. But even in Hong Kong, where many white expatriates have Chinese mistresses, their romance could jeopardize the things they each hold dear. Set in the mid-1950s, The World of Suzie Wong is a beautifully written time capsule of a novel. First published more than fifty years ago, it resonated with readers worldwide, inspiring a film starring William H olden, a ballet, and even a reggae song. Now readers can experience the romance of this groundbreaking story anew.

A Novel

The World of Suzie Wong

A murder mystery, this novel is narrated by a 60-year old man who has just killed his wife. The plot then moves back in time to when the man was 22 and the story eventually reveals why he becomes a killer 40 years later.

The Drowning People

A haunting, gloriously imagined novel by the acclaimed author of History of a Pleasure Seeker (“a classic” —The Washington Post), set in early twentieth-century colonial Cape Town, and a forest full of witch doctors, stingless bees, and hungry leopards. It is 1914. Germany has just declared war on France. Piet Barol was a tutor before he came to South Africa, his wife, Stacey, an opera singer. In Cape Town they are living the high life, impersonating French aristocrats—but their lies are catching up with them. The Barols’ furniture business is on the verge of collapse. They need top-quality wood, and they need it cheap. Piet enlists two Xhosa [pron. KO-sa] men to lead him into a vast forest, in search of a fabled tree. The Natives Land Act has just abolished property rights for the majority of black South Africans, and whole families have been ripped apart. Piet’s guides have their own reasons to lead him through the trees, and to keep him alive while he’s useful to them. Far from the comforting certainties of his privileged existence, Piet finds the prospect of riches beyond measure—and the chance to make great art. He is sure he’ll be able to buy what he needs for a few glass trinkets. But he’s underestimating the Xhosa, who believe the spirits of their ancestors live in this sacred forest. Battle lines are drawn. When Piet’s powers of persuasion fail him, he resorts to darker, more dangerous talents to get what he is determined to have. As the story moves to its devastating conclusion, every character becomes a suspect, and Piet’s arrogance and guile put him on a collision course with forces he cannot understand and that threaten his seemingly enchanted existence.

A novel

Who Killed Piet Barol?

A re-issue of a bestseller which the 1960 film starring Nancy Kwan and William Holden is based Robert is t he only resident of the Nam Kok hotel not renting his room by the hour when he meets Suzie at the bar. She becomes his muse and they fall in love. But even in Hong Kong, where many white expatriates have Chinese mistresses, their romance could jeopardize the things they each hold dear. Set in the mid-1950s, The World of Suzie Wong is a beautifully written time capsule of a novel. First published more than fifty years ago, it resonated with readers worldwide, inspiring a film starring William H olden, a ballet, and even a reggae song. Now readers can experience the romance of this groundbreaking story anew.

Il respiro della notte

British artist, Robert Lomax, meets pretty Suzie in a house of assignation in contemporary Hong Kong.

Richard

Joan McAllistair is about to embark on the 'Trip of a Lifetime' with her daughter Eloise; a journey back to her childhood South Africa and the family homestead in the old Boer Republic of the Orange Free State. For Eloise, the trip is partly a gift, partly a means of assuaging her guilt at moving her mother into a care home. For Joan, the discovery of her grandmother's journal transports her to the troubled times of the Anglo-Boer war. Eloise, in the meantime, has gambled her business's entire fortune on a promise made by an old lover. As their stories unravel, Joan takes increasing refuge in the landscape of her mind - in journeys to her own past. She also finds an unexpected friend in a lonely teenager who shares her fascination with history.

The Lighted Rooms

This opulent, romantic coming-of-age drama set at the height of Europe's belle e poque, is about a young man - Piet Barol - with an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe's leading hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family's mansion on Amsterdam's grandest canal. As the young man enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets - and soon finds his life transformed.

a novel

History of a pleasure seeker

The Wind Cannot Read

A Liturgical Discourse of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass...Divided Into Two Parts, and Collected by A. F. the Least of Friar Minors,... [i.e. Angelus À Sancto Francisco (Richard Mason).]

Comprising a General Description of the Noble and Useful Animal the Horse, with Modes of Management in All Cases and Treatment in Disease

The Gentleman's New Pocket Farrier

Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy

Comprising a General Description of the Noble and Useful Animal, the Horse, with Modes of Management in All Cases, and Treatment in Disease

Richard has adventures living on a small farm in Arkansas.

Lyin' Like a Dog

Mason's farrier and stud book

Comprising a General Description of the Noble and Useful Animal, the Horse : Together with the Quickest and Simplest Mode of Fattening, Necessary Treatment While Undergoing Excessive Fatigue, Or on a Journey... : Also, a Concise Account of the Diseases to which the Horse is Subject, with Such Remedies as Long Experience Has Proved to be Effectual

The Gentleman's New Pocket Farrier,

A study of the scope and limits of understanding. How is understanding to be understood? Are there limits to understanding? What of importance, if anything, could lie beyond understanding? And do we need to understand knowledge before we can know about understanding? Richard Mason’s argument is that a critical theory of under¬standing, modeled on past theories of knowledge, cannot be workable. Understanding may bring wisdom: an uncomfort¬able thought for many philosophers in the twentieth century. Yet philosophy aims at expanding understanding at least as much as knowledge. How we understand understanding affects how we understand philosophy. If we put aside a narrow view of under¬standing based upon a Cartesian model of knowledge, we may gain a more liberal, open understanding of philosophy. Mason’s treatment of these fascinating problems offers a clear and lucid dialogue with a number of contemporary philosophical schools and with philosophy’s past. His discussions include the thought of Hume, Henry James, Heidegger, Frege, Charles Taylor, Michael Oakeshott, Wittgenstein, Gadamer, James Joyce, and the Guyaki Indians. This fascinating book contributes to the work of many of these traditions as well as to the nature of understanding in areas as diverse as physics, music, and linguistics. Richard Mason (1948–2006) was a Fellow of Wolfson College at Cambridge. He is the author of Before Logic and Oppenheimer’s Choice: Reflections from Moral Philosophy, both also published by SUNY Press.

Richard Mason

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