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Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Fair, Jacket and end-papers marked by use.
188 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 1971
9 people want to read
About the author
Angus Wilson
89 books43 followersSir Angus Frank Johnstone Wilson, KBE (11 August 1913 – 31 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot and later received a knighthood for his services to literature.
Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to an English father and South African mother. He was educated at Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford, and in 1937 became a librarian in the British Museum's Department of Printed Books, working on the new General Catalogue. During World War II, he worked in the Naval section Hut 8 at the code-breaking establishment, Bletchley Park, translating Italian Naval codes.
The work situation was stressful and led to a nervous breakdown, for which he was treated by Rolf-Werner Kosterlitz. He returned to the Museum after the end of the War, and it was there that he met Tony Garrett (born 1929), who was to be his companion for the rest of his life.
Wilson's first publication was a collection of short stories, The Wrong Set (1949), followed quickly by the daring novel Hemlock and After, which was a great success, prompting invitations to lecture in Europe.
He worked as a reviewer, and in 1955 he resigned from the British Museum to write full-time (although his financial situation did not justify doing so) and moved to Suffolk.
From 1957 he gave lectures further afield, in Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and the USA. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1968, and received many literary honours in succeeding years. He was knighted in 1980, and was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 1983 to 1988. His remaining years were affected by ill health, and he died of a stroke at a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 31 May 1991, aged 77.
His writing, which has a strongly satirical vein, expresses his concern with preserving a liberal humanistic outlook in the face of fashionable doctrinaire temptations. Several of his works were adapted for television. He was Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia from 1966 to 1978, and jointly helped to establish their creative writing course at masters level in 1970, which was then a groundbreaking initiative in the United Kingdom.
Wilson was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England, to an English father and South African mother. He was educated at Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford, and in 1937 became a librarian in the British Museum's Department of Printed Books, working on the new General Catalogue. During World War II, he worked in the Naval section Hut 8 at the code-breaking establishment, Bletchley Park, translating Italian Naval codes.
The work situation was stressful and led to a nervous breakdown, for which he was treated by Rolf-Werner Kosterlitz. He returned to the Museum after the end of the War, and it was there that he met Tony Garrett (born 1929), who was to be his companion for the rest of his life.
Wilson's first publication was a collection of short stories, The Wrong Set (1949), followed quickly by the daring novel Hemlock and After, which was a great success, prompting invitations to lecture in Europe.
He worked as a reviewer, and in 1955 he resigned from the British Museum to write full-time (although his financial situation did not justify doing so) and moved to Suffolk.
From 1957 he gave lectures further afield, in Japan, Switzerland, Australia, and the USA. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1968, and received many literary honours in succeeding years. He was knighted in 1980, and was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 1983 to 1988. His remaining years were affected by ill health, and he died of a stroke at a nursing home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 31 May 1991, aged 77.
His writing, which has a strongly satirical vein, expresses his concern with preserving a liberal humanistic outlook in the face of fashionable doctrinaire temptations. Several of his works were adapted for television. He was Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia from 1966 to 1978, and jointly helped to establish their creative writing course at masters level in 1970, which was then a groundbreaking initiative in the United Kingdom.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 24, 2025
Anglo –Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson is a Magnum opus included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list…’One of the five greatest novels of the century’— Anthony Burgess
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
10 out of 10
One could see this chef d’oeuvre as a modern version (published in 1956) of War and Peace, with the benefit of being able to relate better to characters that live (if only metaphorically) in our age and not in the distant, difficult to comprehend czarist Russia, much fewer pages to go through, this being perhaps a quarter of the size of the Tolstoy saga (we can always check on the internet, but why bother, the statistics are not really relevant to that extent) but with the caveat that this is a figure of speech and intended as a sort of a practical joke, a hyperbole that we can associate with the scam perpetrated by Gilbert Stockway, when he takes a phallic pagan idol from one site and inserts it into another…
The ‘Melpham excavation’ had been considered one of the most important finds (they are also called digs, as we can learn from the recent movie with that title, with Ralph Fiennes in a leading role) until more will have been revealed about the hoax involved in the discovery, once the letters of the once esteemed professor Stockway will have been read (spoiler alert after fact…is that a thing, of course, this could be edited and included before, but then who reads or cares about this and furthermore, it does not seem as if all this masterpiece would be compromised by this small detail) and the whole debacle will be exposed.
We have a wind of what is about to be proved quite early, as the main character, Gerald Middleton, reminisces and recalls the day when his then best friend, Gilbert, boasts of his prank and the idea that when his father will be knighted and the son that loathes him will let the public know that the celebrity and admiration of the scholar have been based on a flagrant, Big Lie, but there is no way of proving that this was anything but the rambling of a rather peculiar, awkward and often vicious man, married to Dollie, the woman that Gilbert Middleton has always loved, but had been forced to separate from.
He is married to another strange character (again, the comparison with War and Peace was forced and strained for stylistic or just self-entertaining purpose – if nobody reads and laughs at these lines [with honest sense of humor, not in deprecation as in what stupid things this chap can pour out] nothing prevents this reader form enjoying his own blagues- but there are some parallels which can be made, the talent of the author, the number of majestic personages and their complexity, strange behavior…there are no people playing with a bear at a party, but one mother pushes her child of tender age and she falls into the fire, maiming her hand) the Scandinavian Inge, a woman of giant proportions, patronizing, false, arrogant, spending a fortune on ‘simple decorations and living’, keeping their children away (figuratively) from her husband, albeit the latter had been too involved in his affair to be a good parent and he only has esteem for his elder son, Robin, the one who is the head of the family business, and does not like either John, who is gay, a famous journalist and knight defending the ‘needy, nor Kay, the daughter that is married to another outré figure, Donald, the superfluous, vain academic.
The latter would be employed by Robin to give some lectures at the company, until he finds a suitable position in academia, seeing that Donald has had problems finding a job, what with his low Emotional Intelligence and poor people skills, but the brother in law is so superior and self-indulgent that he keeps coming to the office of the very busy CEO, interrupting, creating a nuisance and the image that this is unprofessional and when Robin rebukes him, he takes revenge by revealing in one of his lectures, a maneuver that had been shared in secret and which creates an outrage and serious consequences…
Like his father before, Robin is having an affair with Elvira Stockway, a rather neurotic (although is Woke, ultra liberals read this I would be canceled, if only I were to have an audience to be separated from) inflamed, passionate and brusque young woman, who likes Gilbert to the point that she may entertain an affair with him (this is what she would confess later, only as a proof of how far gone she was at that stage) and who makes a terrible scene at a pretentious party given by the French wife, Marie Helene, where pretentious people are invited – the quality of the guests is disputed by Elvira, who has her own milieu of superior intellectuals, artists, and it would be hard to separate the bias and the real from the false…
John aka Johnnie is the youngest son, a celebrity with a radio show, who has a penchant for campaigns that support the ‘common man’ and try to redress the wrongs committed by the bureaucracy, the irony in the particular story we are told is that the ‘victim’ had not been successful with the garden that he has to give up, and while the comps nation matter is indeed botched, the reporter exaggerates matters, to the disgust of his elder brother…Johnnie is also involved in a febrile affair with an Irish crook, Larrie, who had been involved with some very unsavory fellows, had broken the law…
Indeed, the gay lover would be invited to stay at the mansion, albeit in the premises connected with the stable or garage – I forgot which – by Inge, who is unaware of the sexual implications of what she thinks is platonic (Gerald is told about the orientation of his son and furthermore, he is warned that no good would come from the attachment to an individual who is clearly going to mean trouble) but the guest takes a path towards destruction, physical, first by wrecking the place, getting intoxicated and then stealing jewelry and when he is confronted with the theft, he becomes even more vile and aggressive.
As Inge is aghast at the rudeness, viciousness of the young man, she plans to call the police, when Larrie blackmails her, instructing his host that if that happens, the public will know about the nature of the intimacy between him and her son and at this point the Danish woman loses her grip and has a breakdown – when her son finds that his lover had taken off, stealing in the process his mother’s car, instead of showing empathy for her, he is enraged and accuses his parent for what happened and promising that he will not see her again, scared as he is of what will happen to Larrie and their threatened affair…they would run away to France and quarrel violently, the unstable thief threatens to kill them both and precipitates the car over the edge…
‘One of the five greatest novels of the century’ — Anthony Burgess
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
10 out of 10
One could see this chef d’oeuvre as a modern version (published in 1956) of War and Peace, with the benefit of being able to relate better to characters that live (if only metaphorically) in our age and not in the distant, difficult to comprehend czarist Russia, much fewer pages to go through, this being perhaps a quarter of the size of the Tolstoy saga (we can always check on the internet, but why bother, the statistics are not really relevant to that extent) but with the caveat that this is a figure of speech and intended as a sort of a practical joke, a hyperbole that we can associate with the scam perpetrated by Gilbert Stockway, when he takes a phallic pagan idol from one site and inserts it into another…
The ‘Melpham excavation’ had been considered one of the most important finds (they are also called digs, as we can learn from the recent movie with that title, with Ralph Fiennes in a leading role) until more will have been revealed about the hoax involved in the discovery, once the letters of the once esteemed professor Stockway will have been read (spoiler alert after fact…is that a thing, of course, this could be edited and included before, but then who reads or cares about this and furthermore, it does not seem as if all this masterpiece would be compromised by this small detail) and the whole debacle will be exposed.
We have a wind of what is about to be proved quite early, as the main character, Gerald Middleton, reminisces and recalls the day when his then best friend, Gilbert, boasts of his prank and the idea that when his father will be knighted and the son that loathes him will let the public know that the celebrity and admiration of the scholar have been based on a flagrant, Big Lie, but there is no way of proving that this was anything but the rambling of a rather peculiar, awkward and often vicious man, married to Dollie, the woman that Gilbert Middleton has always loved, but had been forced to separate from.
He is married to another strange character (again, the comparison with War and Peace was forced and strained for stylistic or just self-entertaining purpose – if nobody reads and laughs at these lines [with honest sense of humor, not in deprecation as in what stupid things this chap can pour out] nothing prevents this reader form enjoying his own blagues- but there are some parallels which can be made, the talent of the author, the number of majestic personages and their complexity, strange behavior…there are no people playing with a bear at a party, but one mother pushes her child of tender age and she falls into the fire, maiming her hand) the Scandinavian Inge, a woman of giant proportions, patronizing, false, arrogant, spending a fortune on ‘simple decorations and living’, keeping their children away (figuratively) from her husband, albeit the latter had been too involved in his affair to be a good parent and he only has esteem for his elder son, Robin, the one who is the head of the family business, and does not like either John, who is gay, a famous journalist and knight defending the ‘needy, nor Kay, the daughter that is married to another outré figure, Donald, the superfluous, vain academic.
The latter would be employed by Robin to give some lectures at the company, until he finds a suitable position in academia, seeing that Donald has had problems finding a job, what with his low Emotional Intelligence and poor people skills, but the brother in law is so superior and self-indulgent that he keeps coming to the office of the very busy CEO, interrupting, creating a nuisance and the image that this is unprofessional and when Robin rebukes him, he takes revenge by revealing in one of his lectures, a maneuver that had been shared in secret and which creates an outrage and serious consequences…
Like his father before, Robin is having an affair with Elvira Stockway, a rather neurotic (although is Woke, ultra liberals read this I would be canceled, if only I were to have an audience to be separated from) inflamed, passionate and brusque young woman, who likes Gilbert to the point that she may entertain an affair with him (this is what she would confess later, only as a proof of how far gone she was at that stage) and who makes a terrible scene at a pretentious party given by the French wife, Marie Helene, where pretentious people are invited – the quality of the guests is disputed by Elvira, who has her own milieu of superior intellectuals, artists, and it would be hard to separate the bias and the real from the false…
John aka Johnnie is the youngest son, a celebrity with a radio show, who has a penchant for campaigns that support the ‘common man’ and try to redress the wrongs committed by the bureaucracy, the irony in the particular story we are told is that the ‘victim’ had not been successful with the garden that he has to give up, and while the comps nation matter is indeed botched, the reporter exaggerates matters, to the disgust of his elder brother…Johnnie is also involved in a febrile affair with an Irish crook, Larrie, who had been involved with some very unsavory fellows, had broken the law…
Indeed, the gay lover would be invited to stay at the mansion, albeit in the premises connected with the stable or garage – I forgot which – by Inge, who is unaware of the sexual implications of what she thinks is platonic (Gerald is told about the orientation of his son and furthermore, he is warned that no good would come from the attachment to an individual who is clearly going to mean trouble) but the guest takes a path towards destruction, physical, first by wrecking the place, getting intoxicated and then stealing jewelry and when he is confronted with the theft, he becomes even more vile and aggressive.
As Inge is aghast at the rudeness, viciousness of the young man, she plans to call the police, when Larrie blackmails her, instructing his host that if that happens, the public will know about the nature of the intimacy between him and her son and at this point the Danish woman loses her grip and has a breakdown – when her son finds that his lover had taken off, stealing in the process his mother’s car, instead of showing empathy for her, he is enraged and accuses his parent for what happened and promising that he will not see her again, scared as he is of what will happen to Larrie and their threatened affair…they would run away to France and quarrel violently, the unstable thief threatens to kill them both and precipitates the car over the edge…
‘One of the five greatest novels of the century’ — Anthony Burgess
January 4, 2011
Sometimes books get on my to-read list and I can't remember why they're on the list to begin with. This is the case with The Mulberry Bush.
This is a play set during the 40's, after WWII. It's about a dead guy and his family discovers that he wasn't the golden boy that they thought it was.
This is a play set during the 40's, after WWII. It's about a dead guy and his family discovers that he wasn't the golden boy that they thought it was.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews