A Fearful Joy
by Joyce Cary
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Description
This ambitious novel, covering the life of an exceptional woman from her Victorian childhood until after the Second World War, is an attempt, in the author's own words, 'to lay bare historical change not just at the surface, but in its roots.' Seduced when young, Tabitha leads a terrible existence until she is taken up by Sturge, a wealthy patron of art, and becomes a famous hostess of the 'Yellow Book' period, loved by artists and writers alike. Her second marriage to Sir James Gollan, an show more old industrialist, who instead of retiring becomes an important national figure in the First World War, completely changes her life once again. The novel, in fact, is full of change, for every decade emerges in an immediate and living manner as the setting against which the absorbing lives of the heroine and those about her are described. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I don't think this is Cary's best work. I had more fun with "Mr. Johnson", or "The Horse's Mouth". A woman moves through the larger currents of English life from 1900 to 1946. I found it rather "by the Numbers".
The story of a doctor's daughter and the rather silly choices she makes during the upheavals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She has an interesting private and public life and a variety of jobs. It's an interesting book but I had very little sympathy for the characters.
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Author Information
41+ Works 3,207 Members
Joyce Cary was born as Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in 1888. Cary studied art in Edinburgh and Paris and law at Oxford, before fighting in West Africa in World War I. He took up writing when injuries and bad health forced him into an early retirement. Cary wrote several novels, among them Mister Johnson, using his show more experiences in Africa as background. Cary has been acclaimed for his skill in creating well-developed plots and credible characterizations and for his unique sense of humor, and is best known for a trilogy that includes the novels Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim, and The Horse's Mouth. Cary died in 1957. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- «Радость и страх», рассказы
- Original title
- A fearful joy
- Original publication date
- 1949
- People/Characters
- Tabitha Baskett; Dick Bonser
- Dedication
- To David and Rachel Cecil
- First words
- Everybody agreed with Mrs Baskett that her baby was a most remarkable child
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 63
- Popularity
- 493,736
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (2.80)
- Languages
- English, Finnish, Russian
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 10
