I Live Under a Black Sun

I Live Under a Black Sun is a novelized biography of Jonathan Swift by poet Edith Sitwell.[1] Her debut novel, it is a modernist work, and was published in 1937, straddling her productive period of poetry in the 1920s and the 1940s.[1][2] Though primarily biographical fiction, it includes thematic treatments on mourning and melancholia, and political allegory.[1]

First edition

The novel was the first to be published with Victor Gollancz, after leaving her former publisher Duckworth.[2] At the time of its publication, the novel did not receive much critical acclaim.[3] However, contemporary writers, including Evelyn Waugh and Edwin Muir found the novel successful.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Robin Hackett; Freda Hauser; Gay Wachman (January 2009). At Home and Abroad in the Empire: British Women Write the 1930s. Associated University Presse. pp. 205–208. ISBN 978-0-87413-041-6.
  2. ^ a b A.D. Padgett (6 November 2015). War of the Poets. Lulu.com. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-9572919-3-5.
  3. ^ Gabriele Griffin (2 September 2003). Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing. Routledge. p. 244. ISBN 978-1-134-72209-9.
  4. ^ Vicki K. Janik; Del Ivan Janik; Emmanuel Sampath Nelson (2002). Modern British Women Writers: An A-to-Z Guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 304. ISBN 978-0-313-31030-0.