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Saturnine.
Heppenstall, Rayner. Saturnine. First Edition. London, Secker And Warburg, 1943. 14.5 cm x 22 cm. 151 Pages with an illustrated dustjacket by Oskar Kokoschka. Original Hardcover with original dustjacket in protective collector's mylar. Dustjacket slightly frayed. Otherwise in very good condition with only very minor signs of external wear.
Hardcover
First published July 1, 1943
11 people want to read
About the author
Rayner Heppenstall
55 books5 followersJohn Rayner Heppenstall was an English novelist, poet, diarist, and a BBC radio producer.
Heppenstall's first novel The Blaze of Noon, was neglected at the time. Much later, in 1967, it received an Arts Council award. He was Francophile in literary terms, and his non-fiction writing reflects his tastes.
Critical attention has linked him to the French nouveau roman, in fact as an anticipator, or as a writer of the "anti-novel". Several critics (including, according to his diaries, Helene Cixous) have named Heppenstall in this connection. He is sometimes therefore grouped with Alain Robbe-Grillet, or associated with other British experimentalists: Anthony Burgess, B. S. Johnson, Ann Quin, Alan Burns, Stefan Themerson and Eva Figes. The Connecting Door (1962) is singled out as influenced by the nouveau roman.
He was certainly influenced by Raymond Roussel, whose Impressions of Africa he translated. Later novels include The Shearers, Two Moons and The Pier. He also wrote a short study of the French Catholic writer Léon Bloy.
Heppenstall's first novel The Blaze of Noon, was neglected at the time. Much later, in 1967, it received an Arts Council award. He was Francophile in literary terms, and his non-fiction writing reflects his tastes.
Critical attention has linked him to the French nouveau roman, in fact as an anticipator, or as a writer of the "anti-novel". Several critics (including, according to his diaries, Helene Cixous) have named Heppenstall in this connection. He is sometimes therefore grouped with Alain Robbe-Grillet, or associated with other British experimentalists: Anthony Burgess, B. S. Johnson, Ann Quin, Alan Burns, Stefan Themerson and Eva Figes. The Connecting Door (1962) is singled out as influenced by the nouveau roman.
He was certainly influenced by Raymond Roussel, whose Impressions of Africa he translated. Later novels include The Shearers, Two Moons and The Pier. He also wrote a short study of the French Catholic writer Léon Bloy.
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February 15, 2021
While 'The Blaze of Noon' has been reprinted multiple times, Heppenstall’s second novel, 'Saturnine' (1943), never went into a second printing and never had another edition. Even this first printing was a very limited run: 1,650 copies, of which 1,600 were for sale (there is a publisher’s statement to that effect on an inserted paper card along with an erratum). The reason was that the publisher was a bit concerned about some ‘inflammatory’ content of the book, and, as it turned out, with good reason.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review