Christopher Morley

Parnassus on Wheels

such a great novella, truly a fun story for book lovers! 

sara kerr

I imagined him in his beloved Brooklyn, strolling in Prospect Park and preaching to chance comers about his gospel of good books. "When you sell a man a book," says Roger Mifflin, the sprite-like book peddler at the center of this classic novella, "you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life." In this beguiling but little-known prequel to Christopher Morley's belovedHaunted Bookshop, the "whole new life" that the traveling bookman delivers to Helen McGill, the narrator of Parnassus on Wheels, provides the romantic comedy that drives this charming love letter to a life in books. The Art of The Novella Series Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

Liz Carpenter

Read in Serial app. Charming, short, old-fashioned and amusing story of a middle-aged farmwoman coming into her own. I think this might be the OG "book for book lovers."

"I warn you," said the funny-looking little man with the red beard, "I'm here to sell this caravan of culture, and by the bones of Swinburne I think your brother's the man to buy it." Christopher Morley's unforgettably weird classic tale of adventure on a traveling bookstore called Parnassus, drawn by a steed called Pegasus. Not to be missed. (This jacketless hardcover is intended for the library trade.) Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Kaylah Rodriguez

The beguiling but little known prequel to Christopher Morely's beloved Haunted Bookshop (Dodo Press, 2007), the story of a fictional travelling book-selling business. Here, the new life which the travelling bookman delivers to Helen McGill, who buys the business from him, provides for a romantic comedy which drives this charming love letter to a life dedicated to books. This prequel, the first in a series of three novels written in 1917, is written from a woman's perspective.

Parnassus on Wheels

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