Three Novels

by Ronald Firbank, Alan Hollinghurst (Introduction)

The Flower Beneath the Foot, Sorrow in Sunlight, and Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli.

Genres: Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2000

About the author

British novelist Ronald Firbank was born in London, the son of society lady Harriet Jane Garrett and MP Sir Thomas Firbank. He went to Uppingham School, and then on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He converted to Catholicism in 1907. In 1909 he left Cambridge, without completing a degree.
Living off his inheritance he travelled around Spain, Italy, the Middle East, and North Africa. Ronald Firbank died of lung disease while in Rome.

Reviews

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of the hijinks of Marquez and the magic realists is prefigured here. Firbanks was a man much like J-K Huysman's Des Esseintes; an eccentric, wayward aesthete, but one who actually had the creative spark.