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Barbara Comyns: A savage innocence
The extraordinary twentieth-century writer Barbara Comyns led a life as captivating as the narratives she spun. This pioneering biography reveals the journey of a woman who experienced hardship and single-motherhood before the age of thirty but went on to publish a sequence of novels that are unique in the English language.
Comyns turned her hand to many jobs in order to survive, from artist’s model to restoring pianos. Hundreds of unpublished letters reveal an occasionally desperate but resourceful and witty woman whose complicated life ranged from enduring poverty when young to mixing with spivs, spies and high society. While working as a housekeeper in her mid-thirties, Comyns began transforming the bleak episodes of her life into compelling fictions streaked with surrealism and deadpan humour. The Vet’s Daughter (1959), championed by Graham Greene, brought her fame, although her use of the gothic and macabre divided readers and reviewers.
This biography not only excavates Comyns’s life but also reclaims her fiction, providing a timely reassessment of her literary contribution. It sheds new light on a remarkable author who deftly captured the complexities of human life.
Comyns turned her hand to many jobs in order to survive, from artist’s model to restoring pianos. Hundreds of unpublished letters reveal an occasionally desperate but resourceful and witty woman whose complicated life ranged from enduring poverty when young to mixing with spivs, spies and high society. While working as a housekeeper in her mid-thirties, Comyns began transforming the bleak episodes of her life into compelling fictions streaked with surrealism and deadpan humour. The Vet’s Daughter (1959), championed by Graham Greene, brought her fame, although her use of the gothic and macabre divided readers and reviewers.
This biography not only excavates Comyns’s life but also reclaims her fiction, providing a timely reassessment of her literary contribution. It sheds new light on a remarkable author who deftly captured the complexities of human life.
372 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 23, 2025
I’ve read all of Comyns’s works, except for the two that are no longer in print and after reading this biography perhaps I don’t need to any longer—though I absolutely will if they’re ever reprinted. (I’m not really interested in reading either on the Internet Archive.)
I learned from this biography that, despite her publisher’s claim, Comyns didn’t write The House of Dolls when she was eighty. It was written decades before and not considered marketable at the time it was first submitted to publishers. When a Comyns-renaissance came around, The House of Dolls —and the manuscript of Mr. Fox—were remembered. Some revisions were made, but it doesn’t seem like anything substantial was (re)written or changed. Her publishing success at this time encouraged her to pull out an old manuscript of an unfinished work titled Waiting, but she found the writing hard work and didn’t make any real headway on it.
After years of poverty, I’m happy that the elderly Comyns didn’t need to worry about scraping to survive any longer, though she still worried about money, old habits are hard to break. She seemed like many other grandmothers who worry about and enjoy their children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. The drama of her life was during her formative childhood years, her first marriage, and her single motherhood—all used to great effect in her fiction. Life with her second husband had its financial difficulties and plenty of moves, but those details are rather mundane (for the reader, not for Comyns).
There’s no doubt Comyns was depressed and even suicidal in her single-motherhood years and that after her second husband’s death, her anxiety deepened. But I can’t say that much weight is given to mental illness in this biography beyond the mention of those instances. That’s not a complaint. The biography is mostly based on Comyns’ archives and letters, along with interviews of younger family members, and Horner does great work with all she has.
I was intrigued by the biographer’s statement about Comyns not recognizing a barrier between life and death. She’s referring to Comyns’ seeing dead people, and I was reminded of the title of her novel Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead.
I learned from this biography that, despite her publisher’s claim, Comyns didn’t write The House of Dolls when she was eighty. It was written decades before and not considered marketable at the time it was first submitted to publishers. When a Comyns-renaissance came around, The House of Dolls —and the manuscript of Mr. Fox—were remembered. Some revisions were made, but it doesn’t seem like anything substantial was (re)written or changed. Her publishing success at this time encouraged her to pull out an old manuscript of an unfinished work titled Waiting, but she found the writing hard work and didn’t make any real headway on it.
After years of poverty, I’m happy that the elderly Comyns didn’t need to worry about scraping to survive any longer, though she still worried about money, old habits are hard to break. She seemed like many other grandmothers who worry about and enjoy their children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. The drama of her life was during her formative childhood years, her first marriage, and her single motherhood—all used to great effect in her fiction. Life with her second husband had its financial difficulties and plenty of moves, but those details are rather mundane (for the reader, not for Comyns).
There’s no doubt Comyns was depressed and even suicidal in her single-motherhood years and that after her second husband’s death, her anxiety deepened. But I can’t say that much weight is given to mental illness in this biography beyond the mention of those instances. That’s not a complaint. The biography is mostly based on Comyns’ archives and letters, along with interviews of younger family members, and Horner does great work with all she has.
I was intrigued by the biographer’s statement about Comyns not recognizing a barrier between life and death. She’s referring to Comyns’ seeing dead people, and I was reminded of the title of her novel Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead.
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January 2, 2024If you haven't read any of Barbara Comyns' novels, then what are you waiting for? They're some of my favourite fiction, and so I jumped at the chance to read a proof of A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner - a biography of Comyns which will be published by Manchester University Press in March 2024. Detailed, sympathetic, and endlessly fascinating, Horner is clever in how she links Comyns' novels to what happened in her own life without labouring the point. I knew somethings about Comyns' history (having read the most autobiographical of her novels, Out of the Red and Into the Blue), but I didn't know the extent of how hard she found it to hold onto money, the long gap in her life when her writing was out of favour, and just how many times she moved house to try to escape her debts. Highly recommended.
July 5, 2024
Not sure whether as a bio it deserves 5 stars, but the fact that it even exists just makes me so happy. The massive increase in interest in Comyns over the last 5 to 1o years has been just fantastic to watch. She was completely neglected and underappreciated and a few of her books (Who was Changed, Skin Chairs, Vet's Daughter and Spoons) belong on any list of best novels from the 20thc.
March 7, 2024
Barbara Comyns is such a special writer to me. I became aware of her through one of my favorite short story collections, The Doll’s Alphabet by Camilla Grudova. In the notes of this collection, Comyns’s novel Sisters by a River is listed as a book that inspired Grudova. However, the only Comyns book I could easily get my hands on at the time was The Juniper Tree, which absolutely blew me away. I still think about the devastating ending somewhat regularly.
Anyway, all this to say I am a huge Comyns fan, and an avid collector of various editions of her work. As Comyns makes no secret that her fascinating and sometimes harrowing novels are often semi-autobiographical, I had very high hopes for Avril Horner’s Comyns Biography, A Savage Innocence. I was not disappointed. This is a thorough, loving, and page-turning account of an underappreciated and complex woman.
Following Comyns from her humble beginnings, which induced in her a fear of poverty, Horner gracefully guides us through Comyns’ many careers, love interests, and homes (one takeaway from this book is that Comyns moved house A LOT). There is the heartbreaking and all-too-familiar story of a young woman finding herself in “the family way” with no support and certainly no way of acquiring a safe abortion. And the strange, codependent relationship she has with a woman whose husband Comyns had a brief affair with.
The saddest part for me was the self-doubt Comyns felt due to her lack of mainstream success; she was often unjustly dismissed by the mostly-male press. Her unique, insightful view of the horrors of domesticity were severely undervalued, and I’m so glad she is being recognized for the true talent she always was.
Avril Horner has clearly put so much work and dedication into this wonderful biography, and I am so grateful. Through letters, interviews, press cuttings, and many other sources, Horner gives readers a valuable insight into a true original.
Anyway, all this to say I am a huge Comyns fan, and an avid collector of various editions of her work. As Comyns makes no secret that her fascinating and sometimes harrowing novels are often semi-autobiographical, I had very high hopes for Avril Horner’s Comyns Biography, A Savage Innocence. I was not disappointed. This is a thorough, loving, and page-turning account of an underappreciated and complex woman.
Following Comyns from her humble beginnings, which induced in her a fear of poverty, Horner gracefully guides us through Comyns’ many careers, love interests, and homes (one takeaway from this book is that Comyns moved house A LOT). There is the heartbreaking and all-too-familiar story of a young woman finding herself in “the family way” with no support and certainly no way of acquiring a safe abortion. And the strange, codependent relationship she has with a woman whose husband Comyns had a brief affair with.
The saddest part for me was the self-doubt Comyns felt due to her lack of mainstream success; she was often unjustly dismissed by the mostly-male press. Her unique, insightful view of the horrors of domesticity were severely undervalued, and I’m so glad she is being recognized for the true talent she always was.
Avril Horner has clearly put so much work and dedication into this wonderful biography, and I am so grateful. Through letters, interviews, press cuttings, and many other sources, Horner gives readers a valuable insight into a true original.
February 13, 2024
Barbara Comyns, who to me has always been a mysterious, almost fairy-tale like figure, manages to remain just as strange and beguiling as she was before, even after reading Avril Horner’s astounding biography. Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence gives us what Comyns fans want: the ordinary troubles which become overwhelming, the surreal wackiness of Comyns’ vision, her full and sometimes difficult existence as a mother, artist, writer, and woman trying to make ends meet. This is a riveting portrait of a writer more people need to read. I hope Avril Horner’s wonderful book will be an introduction to the singular, savage, and sneakily complex world of Barbara Comyns.
April 20, 2024
Exquisite biography of a fascinating author.
September 3, 2024
Very well written and a must read for any B Comyns fan.
April 8, 2024
Barbara Comyns is something of a marvel – a highly imaginative writer with an utterly unique voice. Her novels have a strange, somewhat off-kilter feel, frequently blending surreal imagery and touches of dark, deadpan humour with the harsh realities of life. Ever alert to the world’s horrors and disappointments, she understands the compromises a woman may need to make to survive. Nevertheless, her inspired use of deadpan humour prevents her novels from becoming too bleak. This wry sense of the absurd is one of Comyns’ trademarks, cleverly tempering the darkness with a captivating lightness of touch.
While many of us have long enjoyed Comyns’ unique blend of childlike innocence and macabre savagery – a combination that gives this fascinating book its title – she remains underappreciated today. Over the past seventy years, Comyns has repeatedly come in and out of fashion, her stock rising and falling on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, Avril Horner’s superb new biography, A Savage Innocence, looks set to cement Comyns’ position as one of the most original and talented writers of the 20th century, ushering in the more widespread recognition she so richly deserves.
Drawing on a wealth of research, covering family memories, unpublished letters, diary entries and commentaries on Comyns’ work, Horner has produced a thorough (and thoroughly absorbing) insight into this writer’s tumultuous life, highlighting the myriad of connections between fact and fiction. Those familiar with the novels will recognise many of the incidents featured here, particularly as it’s long been acknowledged that Comyns drew on many of her own experiences as inspiration for her work. Nevertheless, Horner is careful to draw parallels between Comyns’ life and the novels only where a connection has been verified by other sources – a scrupulous approach that deserves to be applauded. What emerges is a vivid portrait of a turbulent life, oscillating between anxious periods of financial hardship and happier, more stable times, especially later in life.
Barbara was forty when her first book, the largely autobiographical Sisters by a River, was published – a work that started life as stories relayed to her children to amuse them. Nevertheless, Barbara’s early life proved particularly fraught, characterised by complex, emotionally draining relationships and various hardships – all of which are captured in the initial chapters of Horner’s book.
Born into an upper-middle-class Warwickshire family in 1907, Barbara spent a semi-feral childhood running wild with her five siblings and their various pets. Her father – a resourceful, self-made man named Albert Bayley – drank heavily and was prone to violent outbursts, while her deaf mother, Margaret, proved emotionally remote.
On one occasion, wearing a pale suit, he [Albert] was sitting on a bus next to a man who had a joint of meat in a box on his lap. Blood began to leak out of the box on to Albert’s trousers; he was so furious that he frogmarched the man off the bus, shouting abuse as he did so. (p. 13)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024...
While many of us have long enjoyed Comyns’ unique blend of childlike innocence and macabre savagery – a combination that gives this fascinating book its title – she remains underappreciated today. Over the past seventy years, Comyns has repeatedly come in and out of fashion, her stock rising and falling on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, Avril Horner’s superb new biography, A Savage Innocence, looks set to cement Comyns’ position as one of the most original and talented writers of the 20th century, ushering in the more widespread recognition she so richly deserves.
Drawing on a wealth of research, covering family memories, unpublished letters, diary entries and commentaries on Comyns’ work, Horner has produced a thorough (and thoroughly absorbing) insight into this writer’s tumultuous life, highlighting the myriad of connections between fact and fiction. Those familiar with the novels will recognise many of the incidents featured here, particularly as it’s long been acknowledged that Comyns drew on many of her own experiences as inspiration for her work. Nevertheless, Horner is careful to draw parallels between Comyns’ life and the novels only where a connection has been verified by other sources – a scrupulous approach that deserves to be applauded. What emerges is a vivid portrait of a turbulent life, oscillating between anxious periods of financial hardship and happier, more stable times, especially later in life.
Barbara was forty when her first book, the largely autobiographical Sisters by a River, was published – a work that started life as stories relayed to her children to amuse them. Nevertheless, Barbara’s early life proved particularly fraught, characterised by complex, emotionally draining relationships and various hardships – all of which are captured in the initial chapters of Horner’s book.
Born into an upper-middle-class Warwickshire family in 1907, Barbara spent a semi-feral childhood running wild with her five siblings and their various pets. Her father – a resourceful, self-made man named Albert Bayley – drank heavily and was prone to violent outbursts, while her deaf mother, Margaret, proved emotionally remote.
On one occasion, wearing a pale suit, he [Albert] was sitting on a bus next to a man who had a joint of meat in a box on his lap. Blood began to leak out of the box on to Albert’s trousers; he was so furious that he frogmarched the man off the bus, shouting abuse as he did so. (p. 13)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024...
April 14, 2025
A Savage Innocence is the story of Barbara Comyn’s life. It begins in the English countryside, in a big house by a river with her abusive/ neglectful parents and her sisters. That house is maybe the one she lives in the longest. As an adult she’s part of a bohemian, artist world, she’s also a single mother without money and she moves a lot. Mostly she lives in London but she has periods of time in Spain. This biography covers in detail her romantic relationships, her complicated friendships, her children and grandchildren and her relationship to herself and her doubts about her painting and writing. Avril Horner captures Barbara’s optimism and skill at making the best of things but she doesn’t shy away from the darkness that comes with poverty and trauma. Comyn’s lived through hard times and really struggled to be taken seriously as a writer in a time when women’s writing was still often seen as frivolous or indulgent. The ties to Comyn’s novels, the places where Horner points out which characters were based on who and which personal experiences Comyn’s weaved into her stories are what really make this biography fascinating and engaging.
Barbara Comyns is my favourite author, all of her novels resonated for me. I love the way she and her characters think. I feel peaceful when I read her words because my brain works in the same way. My favourites are The Vet’s Daughter, The Juniper Tree and Our Spoons Came From Woolworths. I haven’t been able to read the travel novels or The Skin Chairs because they are out of print and second hand copies are hard to buy in Aotearoa. I hope that this biography and the general talk about Comyns online will lead to more republishing of her work, she’s a brilliant and singular writer that deserves more accolades and attention.
Barbara Comyns is my favourite author, all of her novels resonated for me. I love the way she and her characters think. I feel peaceful when I read her words because my brain works in the same way. My favourites are The Vet’s Daughter, The Juniper Tree and Our Spoons Came From Woolworths. I haven’t been able to read the travel novels or The Skin Chairs because they are out of print and second hand copies are hard to buy in Aotearoa. I hope that this biography and the general talk about Comyns online will lead to more republishing of her work, she’s a brilliant and singular writer that deserves more accolades and attention.
August 29, 2024
I absolutely loved "Barbara Comyns - A Savage Innoncence" by Avril Horner. I do not usually read biographies but , I decided to to read it as I am a huge fan of Barbara Comyn's work. I was completely absorbed from the start. Horner writes in the same matter of fact and compelling way as Barbara Comyns herself. Horner has gathered an immense amount of research and skilfully bought it together with a light touch into an insightful biography. I suspect that not only is Avril Horner a good researcher but also a very good listener, as I particularly liked stories from living relatives which really bought Barbara Comyns remarkable personality to life. No doubt Barbara Comyns would have been delighted to read such a thoughtful and well written biography on herself.
May 17, 2024
I'm so glad this book was written! I gained so much insight about the fascinating yet sometimes harrowing life that made Barbara Comyns such a great and complicated writer. I feel like I was able to look over Barbara's shoulder and live out episodes of her life alongside her, from bohemian wartime London to preclub Ibiza. I was shocked to learn which episodes in BC's novels were actually taken from her life. I know I'll be rereading this bio, and I hope to someday pour a memorial gin & tonic over the grave of Barbara Comyns! A great book about an important and delightful writer.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews