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‘Expressed
through a style of almost painterly exactitude, Phyllis Paul’s is a
self-sufficient art whose oddness, while peculiarly English, is yet
universal
in its power to disturb, and at the same time to make more bearable,
our own
disturbing world.’ — Glen Cavaliero NEGLECTED
NOVELIST: PHYLLIS PAUL
December 2021
PULLED DOWN
by
PHYLLIS PAUL
With
a Preface by David Tibet
Publication
date: 2021
Phyllis Paul
had a genius for revealing the evil that dwells in the most ordinary
persons.
In this novel she creates with terrifying reality a picture of the
corruption
of two families by madness, death, and a religious spirit as hard as
iron.
Alice Hawke
is a predatory, oversexed and unprincipled widow. Her principal target
is her
brother-in-law, Dr Frank Rodney, a distinguished lay theologian who has
refused
to help her son Lewis in his efforts to be ordained a priest. Suddenly
and
mysteriously, Mrs Hawke is murdered. Unstable and vindictive, Lewis
begins a
campaign of innuendo against Rodney, imputing an indiscreet interest in
Mrs
Hawke, and finally suggesting he has murdered her to silence her.
Although
innocent, Rodney cannot clear himself and gradually begins to wonder if
he
could have committed the murder in a moment of rage.
The
denouement, years later, is a magnificent weaving of the tangled
strands of
fury, revenge, and religious obsession. This is a novel of masterful
power and
brilliant characterisation.
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Softback
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PULLED DOWN
by
PHYLLIS PAUL
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WITHIN
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£14.50 |
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DELIVERY
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£25.00
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The
first 300 hundred copies also include an
insert, which prints a proem by David Tibet, “All Shall
Not Be Well”, and each
copy is signed and numbered by him; this proem is not the same as the Preface.
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~ Preface ~
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David Tibet lives in
Hastings, England, with his Sidereal Queen Ania Goszczyńska and their
three
cats, Fairy, Gef!, and Voirrey. He is the UrSource of the Hallucinatory
Pop
Group Current 93. His hobbies are translating Coptic, Biblical
Hebrew,
Ugaritic, and Akkadian, painting, feeding BirdSong, rebuilding Borley
Rectory,
and making Golems in his spare time.
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A CAGE
FOR THE NIGHTINGALE
by
PHYLLIS PAUL
With
an
Introduction by Glen Cavaliero
 Phyllis
Paul’s seventh novel tells a story of fear, suspicion and sudden death.
Its exciting,
closely woven plot would make it a “thriller”, were it not lifted far
above that genre by this writer’s unusual and sombre power: its subtle
portrayal of character, and its disturbing suggestions of evil in a
person or
a place, make it reminiscent of Henry James’s eerie masterpiece, The Turn of
the Screw.
Rachel
Greenwood, the sensible, cheerful girl against whom all else in the
book is
skilfully contrasted, takes the post of
companion to
Victoria M, a young woman who
lives in
the country at Ashbank House—or Cannel Farm, as the place was called
years
before, when Victoria was accused of murdering the daughter of Dr.
Constantine,
After the girl had spent some years in a mental institution, the doctor
had taken
her back to Cannel Farm and provided a number of people to look after
her and
amuse her in that secluded place. Rachel, unfavourably impressed by the
psychiatrist’s
glib charm, soon concludes that Victoria is not nearly as unbalanced as
she is
made out to be.
But
who can
help Rachel to follow the carefully obscured path back to that distant
September
day? Not Pat Anderson, whose irresponsibility reflects her silly
devotion to the
doctor. Not the young chauffeur Maurice, with his eye to the main
chance. Nor
the doctor’s two precocious illegitimate children. Henry Festing and
his mother
might help; but Henry, for some reason of his own, is afraid of Dr.
Constantine.
In an
atmosphere charged like the air before a storm, A Cage for the Nightingale mounts to its dark climax.
“Miss
Paul writes with an icicle, in a fine and distinguished way that is
quite her own, concerned with a misfit in life . . . the effect is
sombre, impressive, moving.” — The TLS (1934).
“An
almost medieval sense of good and ill. One enters a different
world — compelling, fearful, mysterious. The characters live, the place
has
frightening reality … a kind of violent beauty.” – Elizabeth Jane
Howard
Price:
£14.50 | Softback | ISBN-13: 978-1-908274-51-9
| Page
Extent: 272 | Publication Date: 2021 A
short but perceptive review on the Wormwoodiana blog here “Sundial
Press has produced an
exceptionally attractive edition of Phyllis Paul’s A
Cage
for the Nightingale, likened to
James’s The Turn of the
Screw in its power and artistry.”
— The American Scholar
An
in-depth review on The Nemonicon website beginning here
“that may take me days,
weeks, months or years to complete…”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A
CAGE FOR THE NIGHTINGALE by Phyllis Paul
“THE fire was full of restless,
tentative
flames which had not yet established a hold. They did not light the
room, they
were too unstable. The rays they threw merely touched and let go, like
agitated
fingers. The room was large and lofty, there was a gaping hinterland to
the
fireside, in the black cavities of which a dumb play seemed to be in
process
with a theme full of alarms, smothered outcry and a scampering. At the
far end,
a solemn portal of mahogany was vaguely indicated; its panels sometimes
gave
out a moony beam as if a face or a hand had been thrust in stealthily.
Columnar
folds fell from the cornice before the three windows. They had a velvet
texture
which did not respond to the fitful rays; it swallowed them up,
resuming
darkness with a sullen emphasis.
But the
darkness above and on
either side of the
hearth was the most consistent, for the mantelpiece projected, ornate
and
heavy, throwing across the ceiling and beyond its wings a deep
permanent shadow
which merely fluctuated at the edges as the flames danced; and of the
two occupants
of the easy chairs which stood one in either recess formed by the depth
of the
chimney-breast, nothing could be seen but that they were there.“
(From
Chapter One)
With
an
Introduction by Glen Cavaliero
Glen Cavaliero, poet and literary critic, was a champion
of the little-known ‘supernatural’ novels of
Phyllis Paul
(1903-1973) which have some affinity with the work of Charles Williams.
In
addition to an overview of her work in
his own The Supernatural and English
Fiction Dr Cavaliero wrote several important
articles about the novels of Phyllis Paul, the most
recent of which featured in Wormwood 9 as Mysteries
of the Thirteenth Hour: The Enigmatic World of Phyllis Paul.
|
Softback
edition
|
|
|
A
CAGE FOR THE
NIGHTINGALE
by
PHYLLIS PAUL
|
|
|
WITHIN UK DELIVERY
£14.50 |
Please select
appropriate delivery button |
DELIVERY IN EUROPE
£25.00 |
ROW
DELIVERY
(USA, AUS, NZ)
£29.50 |
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