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New publications | Full listing
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The Ballad of John ClareBy: Hugh Lupton A bitter-sweet tale which evokes both the splendour and the harshness of life in rural England at the beginning of the 19th century and deals with the events which would lead to tragedy for the peasant poet. It is novel which will have a universal appeal because of is strong and deeply moving story.For many readers The Ballad of John Clare will bring to mind the major novels of Thomas Hardy. What marks The Ballad of John Clare from other books about John Clare is that it deals with John Clare’s early life, in fact when he is seventeen. The teenaged Clare is in tune with nature and the rural environment around his home in Helpston in the East of England. In the momentous twelve months covered by the novel we see him courting his childhood sweetheart, having his first sexual encounter with an older woman, labouring in the fields, playing his fiddle and singing at local entertainments, but above all we see him at one with the natural world. This is no rural idyll, however, as the enclosures are about to begin, taking the land held in common by communities and parcelling it out to the local landowners. Starvation and malnutrition are a constant presence in rural England. RRP: £9.99 |
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The CathedralBy: J. K. Huysmans After the Satanic debaucheries of Là-bas (1891) and the sensual battles of En Route (1895), comes the cloistered calm of The Cathedral (1898). In this long, reflective novel, Huysmans’ alter-ego, Durtal, sets out to explore the mystic symbolism embodied in one of the greatest gothic edifices in France, Chartres cathedral. Written at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal that threatened to tear France apart, Chartres cathedral became for Huysmans a potent symbol of the harmonious diversity of the Middle Ages, one that had the porential to unify the divisions in contemporary French society. This complex, multi-layered vision of Chartres cathedral as a structure in which art, science and religion could exist in harmony rather than discord, captured the public imagination on its first publication, and The Cathedral became a runaway bestseller. RRP: £9.99 |
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The Seven Voyages of Abu NuwasBy: Andrew Killeen The Seven Voyages of Abu Nuwas is a sequel to The Father of Locks, which was published by Dedalus in 2009. Ismail the Storyteller swore he would never return to Baghdad. Destiny will not be denied, however, and a summons from Harun al-Rashid, Commander of the Faithful, is not to be disobeyed. On the streets of the greatest city in the world, Ismail encounters the man he hoped and feared to see. Abu Nuwas, known as the Father of Locks, is a notorious poet, libertine, and part-time spy, and was once Ismail's friend and mentor. The Father of Locks is usually in trouble of some kind, but this time his problem is serious: somebody is trying to kill him. An old enemy has come to the city, and Abu Nuwas asks Ismail's help in tracking him down. As they blunder through the Baghdad night, uncertain whether they are the hunters or the hunted, they tell each other stories, tales of the adventures of Abu Nuwas around the tumultuous and colourful world of the early middle ages. Gradually the secrets of past and present converge, leading to shocking revelations and a new solution to one of history's greatest puzzles. RRP: £9.99 |
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The Dedalus Book of Flemish FantasyBy: Eric Dickens This anthology incorporates fantasy stories from the early twentieth century to the present day. The types of fantasy are various: horror, mysticism and magical realism being the dominant ones. One of the early authors is Felix Timmermans who started out with horror stories, but later ended up writing his inimitable Vitalist novels. Two magic realist authors stand out: Johan Daisne and Hubert Lampo. And horror is well represented by several authors including Hugo Claus, Hugo Raes and Ward Ruyslinck - all household names in Flanders. Interesting new authors include Annelies Verbeke and Peter Verhelst. RRP: £9.99 |
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Sentence AdjournedBy: Paul Genney Sentence Adjourned will delight the many readers of Paul Genney’s first novel, Pleading Guilty, which introduced us to that most unlikely anti-hero, Henry Wallace, an ageing provincial barrister at odds with the world and the legal establishment. Things are looking up for Henry Wallace as his career goes from strength to strength; a major terrorist case at The Old Bailey, a complex and very lucrative civil action, a murder case and even a brief to defend his own Head of Chambers but with his workload considerably reduced by getting a brilliant pupil, Jas, to assist him. As Jas burns the midnight oil on Henry’s behalf this allows Henry to give time to his personal life and the search for a lady friend to replace Pauline. But all is not as it seems, and Henry’s life is turned upside down and disaster beckons. RRP: £9.99 |
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The Dedalus Book of Estonian LiteratureBy: Jan Kaus The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature offers a wide-ranging selection of fiction from the end of the nineteenth century until the present day, including work by Estonia’s classic and most important contemporary authors. This is the most important selection of Estonian fiction to have appeared in English and will be essential reading for anyone wanting to gain an idea of Estonian Literature and for the many British visitors to Estonia. RRP: £9.99 |
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The Dedalus Meyrink ReaderBy: Gustav Meyrink Gustav Meyrink is one of the most important and interesting authors of early 20th-century German Literature. To establish his reputation in the English-speaking world Dedalus has translated his five novels plus a collection of his short stories and published the first ever English-language biography of Meyrink. Now is the time to produce an overview of Meyrink in a single volume. The Dedalus Meyrink Reader has excerpts from all the translated books and a whole section of hitherto untranslated material, including the stories from the collection Fledermäuse and autobiographical articles. This volume is perfect companion for both the Meyrink scholar and the first-time Meyrink reader, containing as it does the whole gamut of Meyrink’s writing from his love of the bizarre, the grotesque and the macabre to the spine-chilling occult tales and his quest to know what is on the Other Side of the Mirror. Novelist, satirist, translator of Charles Dickens, dandy, man-about-time, fencer, rower, banker and mystic seer, there are many, sometimes contradictory aspects to Gustav Meyrink, who must also be the only novelist to have challenged a whole army regiment to a duel. He has left behind a unique body of work, which can be sampled and enjoyed in The Dedalus Meyrink Reader. RRP: £9.99 |
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StrandedBy: J. K. Huysmans J.-K. Huysmans’ Stranded (En Rade 1887), published just three years after the iconoclastic Against Nature, sees him again breaking new ground and pushing back the boundaries of the novel form. Stamped throughout with his characteristic black humour, Stranded is one of Huysmans’ most innovative, most imaginative works. Jacques’ waking reveries and daydreams are balanced by a succession of dreams and nightmares that explore the seemingly irrational, often grotesque, world of unconscious desire, producing a series of images that are as unforgettable and unsettling as anything to be found in the decadent fantasies of Against Nature, or the satanic obsessions of Là-bas. RRP: £9.99 |
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The Word TreeBy: Teolinda Gersão Teolinda Gersão paints an extraordinarily evocative picture of childhood in Africa and the stark contrast between warm, lush, ebullient Mozambique and the bleak, poor, priggish Portugal of Salazar. RRP: £9.99 |
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Torture GardenBy: Octave Mirbeau "A century after its first publication, this book is still capable of shocking. The opening satire is probably meaningful only to scholars of French political history, but the subsequent journey into the Far East accentuates connections between love and death, sex and depravity, fastidiousness and pleasure. And the petty, parochial corruptions of the narrator are put into context by the immersion into the Sadeian world of the Torture Garden." The Times RRP: £9.99 |