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Collected Tales and Fantasies of Lord Berners: Including Percy Wallingford, the Camel, Mr. Pidger, Count Omega, the Romance of a Nose, Far from the Madding War |
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Description:
During his life, Gerald Tyrwhitt, the 14th Baron Berners, made his reputation as a composer of ballet and opera scores, but he was also an entertaining memoirist and a crafter of sly and funny tales. In First Childhood and A Distant Prospect, he depicted the realities of growing up Victorian; in Collected Tales and Fantasies, he examines his privileged world through a medium that is no less true for being fiction. Berners relies on humor to make his points, but there's nothing remotely gentle in his mockery. Take, for example, "The Camel," an absurd tale of an ecclesiastical couple whose life is undone by a dromedary's mysterious appearance on their doorstep. Or "Percy Wallingford," in which the title character, a young man entirely without fault, begins to crumble when he discovers his wife has amazing night vision and can see him at his most defenseless: while he is asleep. In the world of Berners's making, even the most innocuous or ridiculous of events can lead to serious consequences indeed, and each of the six tales included in this volume has its dark side. Misdirected love letters, antique embroidery, little dogs that are loved and loathed in equal measure--from such off-kilter seeds, full-blown satire blooms, and readers who like their humor spiced with just a dash of arsenic will embrace this underappreciated writer. --Margaret Prior
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