Light on a dark horse: An autobiography, 1901-1935;

by Roy Campbell

Light on a Dark Horse An Autobiography (1901-1935) was written by Roy Campbell, published by Henry Regnery Company and was printed in 1952 in a Hardcover binding.

Genres: Biography

348 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Roy Campbell was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars.

Reviews

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good raconteur, and Campbell is certainly one. I'm certain that many of his stories and recollections are exaggerated, but I don't count that against him.

Talk about an interesting life: wrestling octopuses and sidestepping black mambas in Durban, galivanting with the Bloomsbury Group (eventually becoming disenchanted), bullfighting and jousting in Provence, and harboring Carmelite monks in Toledo.

I'm interested in accounts of the Spanish Civil War, so it's a shame that Campbell was killed in a car accident before he had the chance to write another volume of memoirs on his time in Spain. But, as Edith Sitwell put it, he died as he lived: "He, who was all energy, all fire, would have hated to die slowly and helplessly, in bed. He died, as he had lived, like a flash of lightning."

Campbell was certainly a controversial figure, but it appears that his most fierce critics are those who still resent the fact that he dared to lampoon the beknighted Bloomsbury Group. He has never been forgiven for that literary sin and continues to suffer posthumous slander as a result.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Campbell has a great knack for storytelling so even when you know he's embellishing the truth and leaving out unsavory details its top much fun to irritate.
What a life he lived. Incredible conversion story as well, uniquely tied to his time in Spain during the rise of Anarchism, Socialism, and Communism.

[Rene Bard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Campbell's prose is evocative and descriptive. The story of his life seems to brush up against some of the most famous people and times - Bloomsbury Group for people & Spanish Civil War for historical times - from the 1920s and 30s.