King David Dances

by Francis Stuart

In 1933, Yeats wrote about the young Francis Stuart's second book that it was ""more personally and beautifully written than any book of our generation,"" and added a very prophetic ""If luck comes to his aid he will be our great writer."" Born in 1902, Stuart became one of Ireland's most controversial artists, a modern novelist of ideas more akin to the European models of Camus or Koestler. Branded a fascist maverick because he left Ireland to teach at the University of Berlin during World War II and due to his ambivalent political associations with Nazi Germany, his books were banned until Victor Gollancz began publishing him again in the 1940s. Frank Kermode called him ""exceptional...to put it mildly a writer of originality...often funny as well as shocking,"" and Victoria Glendinning called Stuart a ""powerful and interesting writer...because he writes passionately."" At the age of 94 Stuart wrote this new novella. Purporting to be the diary of the Irish-Hungarian archaeologist, Lodsi Dormondi, King David Dances is both a self-survival manual and instructional booklet for the cosmos. Provocative, playful, and compassionate, this remarkable new work is evidence of the extraordinary talent and invincible spirit of one of Ireland's most important writers of this century.

62 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart (1902–2000) was an Irish writer. His novels have been described as having a thrusting modernist iconoclasm. Awarded the highest artistic accolade in Ireland before his death in 2000.

Works:

We Have Kept the Faith, Dublin 1923
Women and God, London 1931
Pigeon Irish, London 1932
The Coloured Dome, London 1932
Try the Sky, London 1933
Glory, London 1933
Things to Live For: Notes for an Autobiography, London 1934
In Search of Love, London 1935
The Angels of Pity, London 1935
The White Hare, London 1936
The Bridge, London 1937
Julie, London 1938
The Great Squire, London 1939
Der Fall Casement, Hamburg 1940
The Pillar of Cloud, London 1948
Redemption, London 1949
The Flowering Cross, London 1950
Good Friday's Daughter, London 1952
The Chariot, London 1953
The Pilgrimage, London 1955
Victors and Vanquished, London 1958
Angels of Providence, London 1959
Black List Section H, Southern Illinois Univ. Press 1971
Memorial, London 1973
A Hole in the Head, London 1977
The High Consistory, London 1981
We Have Kept the Faith: New and Selected Poems, Dublin 1982
States of Mind, Dublin 1984
Faillandia, Dublin 1985
The Abandoned Snail Shell, Dublin 1987
Night Pilot, Dublin 1988
A Compendium of Lovers, Dublin 1990
Arrow of Anguish, Dublin 1995
King David Dances, Dublin 1996

Pamphlets

Nationality and Culture, Dublin 1924
Mystics and Mysticism, Dublin 1929
Racing for Pleasure and Profit in Ireland and Elsewhere, Dublin 1937

Plays

Men Crowd me Round, 1933
Glory, 1936
Strange Guests, 1940
Flynn's Last Dive, 1962
Who Fears to Speak, 1970

Additionally, Stuart authored many articles in various journals.