What do you think?
Rate this book
Park: A Fantastic Story
A neglected utopian satire first published by Eric Gill in a limited edition of 250 copies in 1932.
"A short and dreamlike novel in which the hero, Dr. Mungo Park, dies and reawakens and seems to find himself in a future inhabited by a new race of black Catholics who are technically tremendously sophisticated, while the rodent-like descendants of degenerate white Englishmen live underground in wonderfully excavated caverns." Fiona MacCarthy, The Times
"A short and dreamlike novel in which the hero, Dr. Mungo Park, dies and reawakens and seems to find himself in a future inhabited by a new race of black Catholics who are technically tremendously sophisticated, while the rodent-like descendants of degenerate white Englishmen live underground in wonderfully excavated caverns." Fiona MacCarthy, The Times
128 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1932
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
John Gray
28 books6 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
He was born in London. Taken out of school in 1879 , he was successively a metal-turner, civil servant, aesthete, Catholic convert, and, from 1901 , priest. His Silverpoints (subsidized by Oscar Wilde , designed by Charles Ricketts , published by the Bodley Head, 1893 ) contained sixteen poems and thirteen translations from the French Symbolists; as both text and object, it was the quintessential Nineties volume. After two decades of silence following his ordination, he resumed writing and publishing in his last years. His novella Park: A Fantastic Story ( 1932 ) was reissued in 1966 and again in 1984 . Gray died four months after the death of his lifelong friend and benefactor André Raffalovich .
‘The Barber’ and ‘Mishka’ stand out from the merely decorative effects of his earliest verse, as does ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ from the mass of devotional poetry written between his conversion and ordination; ‘The Flying Fish’ ( 1896 ) is also notable. His late work is compressed, precise, and individual (at times eccentric); ‘Quatrains’ and ‘Ode’ show to especially good effect his reading of modernist poetry.
Gray's Collected Poems have been edited by Ian Fletcher (London, 1974 ; Greensville, NC, 1988 ). Fr. Brocard Sewell has compiled Two Friends ( 1963 ; essays on Gray and Raffalovich) and written Footnote to the Nineties ( 1968 ) and In the Dorian Mode: A Life of John Gray ( 1983 ). Jerusha Hull McCormack's John Gray: Poet, Dandy, and Priest ( 1991 ) is a critical biography.
Read more: John Gray Biography - ( 1866 –1934 ), Silverpoints, Park: A Fantastic Story, ‘The Barber’, ‘Mishka’, ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages...
He was born in London. Taken out of school in 1879 , he was successively a metal-turner, civil servant, aesthete, Catholic convert, and, from 1901 , priest. His Silverpoints (subsidized by Oscar Wilde , designed by Charles Ricketts , published by the Bodley Head, 1893 ) contained sixteen poems and thirteen translations from the French Symbolists; as both text and object, it was the quintessential Nineties volume. After two decades of silence following his ordination, he resumed writing and publishing in his last years. His novella Park: A Fantastic Story ( 1932 ) was reissued in 1966 and again in 1984 . Gray died four months after the death of his lifelong friend and benefactor André Raffalovich .
‘The Barber’ and ‘Mishka’ stand out from the merely decorative effects of his earliest verse, as does ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ from the mass of devotional poetry written between his conversion and ordination; ‘The Flying Fish’ ( 1896 ) is also notable. His late work is compressed, precise, and individual (at times eccentric); ‘Quatrains’ and ‘Ode’ show to especially good effect his reading of modernist poetry.
Gray's Collected Poems have been edited by Ian Fletcher (London, 1974 ; Greensville, NC, 1988 ). Fr. Brocard Sewell has compiled Two Friends ( 1963 ; essays on Gray and Raffalovich) and written Footnote to the Nineties ( 1968 ) and In the Dorian Mode: A Life of John Gray ( 1983 ). Jerusha Hull McCormack's John Gray: Poet, Dandy, and Priest ( 1991 ) is a critical biography.
Read more: John Gray Biography - ( 1866 –1934 ), Silverpoints, Park: A Fantastic Story, ‘The Barber’, ‘Mishka’, ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 12, 2015
From a minor decadent poet/Oscar Wilde associate turned priest comes this odd little utopian/allegorical fantasy that reads like a conglomeration of The Time Machine, Canticle for Leibowitz, and Read's Green Child as reinterpreted by Baron Corvo; unfortunately, all this makes the book sound far more interesting than it actually is - it's a pretty quick read, at least.
August 29, 2012
Read if you don't mind initial mystification. The Afterword cleared up several remaining problems.
February 15, 2010
An odd fantasy, worth reading and lingers strangely in the mind... Gray also penned a not-very-good classic of 'Nineties verse called SILVERPOINTS that has the distinction of being one of the most physically beautiful books produced in an era decidedly not lacking in them.
July 30, 2012
Noiosissimo.
I dialoghi iniziali sono in latino, particolare che ho trovato fastidioso; inoltre alcuni parsonaggi hanno più nomi. Sin dalle prime pagine ho avuto avversione per il libro, l'ho finito per principio.
I dialoghi iniziali sono in latino, particolare che ho trovato fastidioso; inoltre alcuni parsonaggi hanno più nomi. Sin dalle prime pagine ho avuto avversione per il libro, l'ho finito per principio.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews