The Towers of Trebizond
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| The Towers of Trebizond | |
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| Author | Rose Macaulay |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Autobiographical novel |
| Publisher | Collins, London |
| Publication date | 1956 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | The World My Wilderness (1950) |
The Towers of Trebizond is a novel published in 1956 by the English novelist, biographer and traveller Rose Macaulay (1881-1958). The last of her novels, The Towers of Trebizond is also Macaulay's most successful. Widely regarded as her masterpiece, it was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1956.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The book is largely autobiographical. It follows the adventures of a group of people, the eccentric Dorothea ffoulkes-Corbett (otherwise Aunt Dot), her High Anglican clergyman friend Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg (who keeps his collection of sacred relics in his pockets), and the narrator, Laurie, travelling from Istanbul to Trebizond. On the way, they meet magicians, difficult Turkish policemen, and Billy Graham on tour. Aunt Dot proposes to emancipate the women of Turkey by converting them to Anglicanism and popularizing the bathing hat,[1] while Laurie has more worldly preoccupations. The book also deals with the attractions of mystical Christianity and the inherent conflict between Christianity and adultery.[2] This was a problem Macaulay had faced in her own life, having had an affair with the married novelist and former Roman Catholic priest Gerald O'Donovan (1871–1942) from 1920 until his death.[3]
The famous opening sentence is,[4][5]
| “ | "Take my camel, dear", said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass. | ” |
A Turkish woman doctor says in the book of Aunt Dot, "She is a woman of dreams. Mad dreams, dreams of crazy, impossible things. And they aren't all of conversion to the Church, oh no. Nor all of the liberation of women, oh no. Her eyes are on far mountains, always some far peak where she will go. She looks so firm and practical, that nice face, so fair and plump and shrewd, but look in her eyes, you will sometimes catch a strange gleam."[4]
Barbara Reynolds has suggested that the character of Aunt Dot is based on Rose Macaulay's friend Dorothy L. Sayers, and that Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg has elements of Fathers Patrick McLaughlin, Gilbert Shaw and Gerard Irvine.[6]
The book was described in The New York Times: "Fantasy, farce, high comedy, lively travel material, delicious japes at many aspects of the frenzied modern world, and a succession of illuminating thoughts about love, sex, life, organized churches and religion are all tossed together with enchanting results."[2]
[edit] Editions
- The first UK edition was published by Collins of London in 1956.
- The first US edition (under the same title) was published by Farrar, Straus, of New York, in 1957, with a new edition by Farrar Straus & Giroux in 1980.[7]
- A de luxe edition from the Folio Society, of London, with an introduction by Joanna Trollope, appeared in 2005 and is still in print.
- A UK paperback version is also still in print, published by Flamingo.[8]
[edit] References
- Hein, David (Winter 2006). "Faith and Doubt in Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond". Anglican Theological Review 88 (1): 47-68. ISSN 0003-3286.
- Crawford, Alice (1995). Paradise Pursued: The Novels of Rose Macaulay. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0-8386-3573-3.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Macaulay, Rose: The Towers of Trebizond (Collins, London, 1956), Chapter 2
- ^ a b The Towers of Trebizond at nybooks.com (accessed 14 November 2007)
- ^ Macaulay, Dame (Emilie) Rose (1881–1958), author by Constance Babington Smith, revised by Katherine Mullin, in Dictionary of National Biography online (accessed 15 November 2007)
- ^ a b Macaulay, Rose: The Towers of Trebizond (Collins, London, 1956)
- ^ Pearl, Nancy: Famous First Words at npr.org (accessed 14 November 2007)
- ^ Take away the camel, and all is revealed by Barbara Reynolds at anglicansonline.org (accessed 14 November 2007)
- ^ The Towers of Trebizond (Farrar Straus & Giroux) at amazon.com (accessed 14 November 2007) ISBN 978-0374278540
- ^ The Towers of Trebizond (Flamingo) at amazon.co.uk (accessed 14 November 2007) ISBN 978-0006544210
