Has anyone out there read any works by Mary Butts (1890-1937), such as The Taverner Novels, The Macedonian, The Crystal Cabinet, and The Ashe of Rings?
She was a colourful and wild character, too outrageous even for the Bloomsbury set, with her opium addiction and her singleminded obsession to party during the interwar years. Early on, she was taken under the wing of Ford Madox Ford and Ezra Pound, and hung out with Hemmingway, Cocteau, Aleister Crowley, Joyce et al.
It is said that in 1937 TS Eliot had persuaded Fabers to publish a collection of her short stories, but unfortunately she died, aged 46, of peritonitus and a perforated ulcer just days before this could happen, perhaps robbing her of the profile that would have secured her a position alongside more recognised names of the day.
I find her work to haunting and certainly worth a look.
She was a colourful and wild character, too outrageous even for the Bloomsbury set, with her opium addiction and her singleminded obsession to party during the interwar years. Early on, she was taken under the wing of Ford Madox Ford and Ezra Pound, and hung out with Hemmingway, Cocteau, Aleister Crowley, Joyce et al.
It is said that in 1937 TS Eliot had persuaded Fabers to publish a collection of her short stories, but unfortunately she died, aged 46, of peritonitus and a perforated ulcer just days before this could happen, perhaps robbing her of the profile that would have secured her a position alongside more recognised names of the day.
I find her work to haunting and certainly worth a look.