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Various Temptations
Sewn hardback printed and bound by Bookcraft in orange wibalin cloth stamped in gold, with head and tailbands.
350 copies.
Contents:
-Introduction by Mark Valentine
-The Equilibriad/ A Woman Seldom Found/ The Little Room/ A Smell of Fear/ From the Water Junction/ The Peach-House-Potting-Shed/ A Country Walk/ The Forbidden Lighthouse/ Murder/ Saturation Point/ The Long Sheet/ Fireman Flower/ The Cliff/ The Vertical Ladder/ The Little Fears/ The Tournament/ Various Temptations/ Crabfroth/ A Saving Grace/ One Sunny Afternoon/ In the Maze/ My Tree/ A Touch of the Sun/ The Ballroom/ Pas De Deux.
The author's name is spelt incorrectly on the spine!
350 copies.
Contents:
-Introduction by Mark Valentine
-The Equilibriad/ A Woman Seldom Found/ The Little Room/ A Smell of Fear/ From the Water Junction/ The Peach-House-Potting-Shed/ A Country Walk/ The Forbidden Lighthouse/ Murder/ Saturation Point/ The Long Sheet/ Fireman Flower/ The Cliff/ The Vertical Ladder/ The Little Fears/ The Tournament/ Various Temptations/ Crabfroth/ A Saving Grace/ One Sunny Afternoon/ In the Maze/ My Tree/ A Touch of the Sun/ The Ballroom/ Pas De Deux.
The author's name is spelt incorrectly on the spine!
- GenresHorrorShort Stories
350 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
36 people want to read
About the author
William Sansom
103 books25 followersSansom was born in London and educated at Uppingham School, Rutland, before moving to Bonn to learn German.
From 1930 onwards, Sansom worked in international banking for the British chapter of a German bank, but moved to an advertising company in 1935, where he worked until the outbreak of World War II. At this time he became a full-time London firefighter, serving throughout The Blitz. His experiences during this time inspired much of his writing, including many of the stories found in the celebrated collection Fireman Flower. He also appeared in Humphrey Jennings's famous film about the Blitz, Fires Were Started- Sansom is the fireman who plays the piano.
After the war, Sansom became a full-time writer. In 1946 and 1947 he was awarded two literary prizes by the Society of Authors, and in 1951 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He married actress Ruth Grundy.
As well as exploring war-torn London, Sansom's writing deals with romance (The Face of Innocence), murder ('Various Temptations'), comedy ('A Last Word') and supernatural horror ('A Woman Seldom Found'). The latter, perhaps his most anthologized story, combines detailed description with narrative tension to unravel a young man's encounter with a bizarre creature in Rome.
Sansom died in London.
From the Independent, October 2008:
"..William Sansom was once described as London's closest equivalent to Franz Kafka. He wrote in hallucinatory detail, bringing every image into pin-sharp focus. It was his strength and weakness; it made his stories hauntingly memorable, but his technique often left his characters feeling under-developed.
His style was as cool and painstaking as that of Henry Green, also a wartime firefighter. His 1944 collection Fireman Flower, and Other Short Stories may be his pinnacle. In "The Little Room", a nun waits for death after being bricked up in her windowless cell for an unnamed transgression. To make her fate worse, a meter on the wall marks the incremental loss of the air in the room, and Sansom describes her changing state of mind with passion and clinical precision.
The 1948 novella "The Equilibriad" owes a little too much to Kafka but shares the same strangeness, as the hero awakes to find himself able to walk only at a 45-degree angle. Sansom was also good with an opening hook. One story starts, "How did the three boys ever come to spend their lives in the water-main junction?"
Sansom's publisher described his work as "modern fables", but what makes them so ripe for rediscovery is their freshness and currency. His characters face inscrutable futures with patience and resignation, knowing that they can do little to influence the outcome of their lives. Sometimes terrible events, such as the collapse of a burning wall, slow down and expand to engulf the reader..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
Christine Brooke-Rose shares short story space with Sansom in Winter Tales no 8, and homages him in The Languages of Love.
From 1930 onwards, Sansom worked in international banking for the British chapter of a German bank, but moved to an advertising company in 1935, where he worked until the outbreak of World War II. At this time he became a full-time London firefighter, serving throughout The Blitz. His experiences during this time inspired much of his writing, including many of the stories found in the celebrated collection Fireman Flower. He also appeared in Humphrey Jennings's famous film about the Blitz, Fires Were Started- Sansom is the fireman who plays the piano.
After the war, Sansom became a full-time writer. In 1946 and 1947 he was awarded two literary prizes by the Society of Authors, and in 1951 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He married actress Ruth Grundy.
As well as exploring war-torn London, Sansom's writing deals with romance (The Face of Innocence), murder ('Various Temptations'), comedy ('A Last Word') and supernatural horror ('A Woman Seldom Found'). The latter, perhaps his most anthologized story, combines detailed description with narrative tension to unravel a young man's encounter with a bizarre creature in Rome.
Sansom died in London.
From the Independent, October 2008:
"..William Sansom was once described as London's closest equivalent to Franz Kafka. He wrote in hallucinatory detail, bringing every image into pin-sharp focus. It was his strength and weakness; it made his stories hauntingly memorable, but his technique often left his characters feeling under-developed.
His style was as cool and painstaking as that of Henry Green, also a wartime firefighter. His 1944 collection Fireman Flower, and Other Short Stories may be his pinnacle. In "The Little Room", a nun waits for death after being bricked up in her windowless cell for an unnamed transgression. To make her fate worse, a meter on the wall marks the incremental loss of the air in the room, and Sansom describes her changing state of mind with passion and clinical precision.
The 1948 novella "The Equilibriad" owes a little too much to Kafka but shares the same strangeness, as the hero awakes to find himself able to walk only at a 45-degree angle. Sansom was also good with an opening hook. One story starts, "How did the three boys ever come to spend their lives in the water-main junction?"
Sansom's publisher described his work as "modern fables", but what makes them so ripe for rediscovery is their freshness and currency. His characters face inscrutable futures with patience and resignation, knowing that they can do little to influence the outcome of their lives. Sometimes terrible events, such as the collapse of a burning wall, slow down and expand to engulf the reader..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...
Christine Brooke-Rose shares short story space with Sansom in Winter Tales no 8, and homages him in The Languages of Love.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 21, 2021
The title story is chilling, not just because of the subject matter of a killer making friends with his intended victim but also because of her desperate loneliness and just to feel important to someone at all costs.
June 16, 2023
A unique interaction between a murdered and victim: a naunced and differenty style of blood-lust motivation.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews