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Charley Is My Darling
This edition contains a new prefatory essay by the author.
Charley is a love and a terror, a gifted and imaginative boy such as Gulley Jimson might have been. he is the hero of this sad, tender, hilarious novel, one of the most memorable Joyce Carey ever wrote, and it is high time he was introduced to American readers. Of Charley iIs My Darling, Joyce Cary said in a prefatory essay to the Carfax Edition: "Charley is a small boy, an evacuee, sent to the West Country from a London Slum. He is found to have a dirty head and has to be shaved. This gives him a bad start with the other evacuees, who, jostling for position among themselves, unite to jeer at him. But being a child with imagination and nerve, he recovers his position and self respect, and finally becomes the leader of gangs by various bold enterprises which land him in the courts.
Charley is a love and a terror, a gifted and imaginative boy such as Gulley Jimson might have been. he is the hero of this sad, tender, hilarious novel, one of the most memorable Joyce Carey ever wrote, and it is high time he was introduced to American readers. Of Charley iIs My Darling, Joyce Cary said in a prefatory essay to the Carfax Edition: "Charley is a small boy, an evacuee, sent to the West Country from a London Slum. He is found to have a dirty head and has to be shaved. This gives him a bad start with the other evacuees, who, jostling for position among themselves, unite to jeer at him. But being a child with imagination and nerve, he recovers his position and self respect, and finally becomes the leader of gangs by various bold enterprises which land him in the courts.
- GenresFiction
343 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1940
9 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Cary
101 books98 followersCary now undertook his great works examining historical and social change in England during his own lifetime. The First Trilogy (1941–44) finally provided Cary with a reasonable income, and The Horse's Mouth (1944) remains his most popular novel. Cary's pamphlet "The Case for African Freedom" (1941), published by Orwell's Searchlight Books series, had attracted some interest, and the film director Thorold Dickinson asked for Cary's help in developing a wartime movie set partly in Africa. In 1943, while writing The Horse's Mouth, Cary travelled to Africa with a film crew to work on Men of Two Worlds.
Cary travelled to India in 1946 on a second film project with Dickinson, but the struggle against the British for national independence made movie-making impossible, and the project was abandoned. The Moonlight (1946), a novel about the difficulties of women, ended a long period of intense creativity for Cary. Gertrude was suffering from cancer and his output slowed for a while.
Gertrude died as A Fearful Joy (1949) was being published. Cary was now at the height of his fame and fortune. He began preparing a series of prefatory notes for the re-publication of all his works in a standard edition published by Michael Joseph.
He visited the United States, collaborated on a stage adaptation of Mister Johnson, and was offered a CBE, which he refused. Meanwhile he continued work on the three novels that make up the Second Trilogy (1952–55). In 1952, Cary had some muscle problems which were originally diagnosed as bursitis, but as more symptoms were noted over the next two years, the diagnosis was changed to that of motor neuron disease, a wasting and gradual paralysis that was terminal.
As his physical powers failed, Cary had to have a pen tied to his hand and his arm supported by a rope in order to write. Finally, he resorted to dictation until unable to speak, and then ceased writing for the first time since 1912. His last work, The Captive and the Free (1959), first volume of a projected trilogy on religion, was unfinished at his death on March 29, 1957.
Cary travelled to India in 1946 on a second film project with Dickinson, but the struggle against the British for national independence made movie-making impossible, and the project was abandoned. The Moonlight (1946), a novel about the difficulties of women, ended a long period of intense creativity for Cary. Gertrude was suffering from cancer and his output slowed for a while.
Gertrude died as A Fearful Joy (1949) was being published. Cary was now at the height of his fame and fortune. He began preparing a series of prefatory notes for the re-publication of all his works in a standard edition published by Michael Joseph.
He visited the United States, collaborated on a stage adaptation of Mister Johnson, and was offered a CBE, which he refused. Meanwhile he continued work on the three novels that make up the Second Trilogy (1952–55). In 1952, Cary had some muscle problems which were originally diagnosed as bursitis, but as more symptoms were noted over the next two years, the diagnosis was changed to that of motor neuron disease, a wasting and gradual paralysis that was terminal.
As his physical powers failed, Cary had to have a pen tied to his hand and his arm supported by a rope in order to write. Finally, he resorted to dictation until unable to speak, and then ceased writing for the first time since 1912. His last work, The Captive and the Free (1959), first volume of a projected trilogy on religion, was unfinished at his death on March 29, 1957.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 8, 2013
Charlie Is My Darling has many of the elements featured in Mr. Johnson, with a different setting and just as dramatic an ending. Charley is a young London evacuee in the English countryside during WWII. Like Mr. Johnson, Charley has an uncanny ability to live in the moment without it ever occurring to him that there could be consequences. Like Mr. Johnson, he has great affection for (in Charlie's case) a girl about his age. And, these characteristics combined with Charlie's interest in drawing (pornographic sketches, mostly, of dubious skill), link him, too, to Gulley Jimson, the protagonist of The Horse's Mouth, obsessed with every blank surface he comes across. All three are scoundrels, and Charley could have been the child that Gulley grew up to be.
So, Charlie Is My Darling is another example of Cary's setting us up not to care about a character, even to dislike him, then delivering an ending that engages our sympathy beyond anything we could have anticipated. Cary is also able to evoke in Charley emotions and feelings that he cannot even identify, much less describe to himself or articulate to others.
Highly recommended. Like The Moonlight, Charlie Is My Darling may well be a gateway book to Cary's other work.
Highly recommended.
So, Charlie Is My Darling is another example of Cary's setting us up not to care about a character, even to dislike him, then delivering an ending that engages our sympathy beyond anything we could have anticipated. Cary is also able to evoke in Charley emotions and feelings that he cannot even identify, much less describe to himself or articulate to others.
Highly recommended. Like The Moonlight, Charlie Is My Darling may well be a gateway book to Cary's other work.
Highly recommended.
June 1, 2019
Extremely captivating narration of a very lively, unruly and complex boy. The psychological observations are scintilliatingly perspicacious. Child psychologists should read this book!
April 13, 2023
Not much to say. It was an OK story but when in the conversations, I had a hard time trying to figure out what they were saying as they spoke the language of their nationally. So annoying sometimes.
Read
May 8, 2025Similarly I was foxed by some of the author's attempts to render dialect by a mixture of phonetics and misspelling. Nonetheless I was completely taken by the purity of Charlie's physical relationship with Lizzie, and his puzzlement at the interpretation his elders put on it.
December 7, 2012
A charming and deceptively naive story. There's a bit of a nice backdrop to it all (wartime evacuees) against which modest but potentially ominous tale of juvenile delinquency unfolds. Cary's sympathies are with the gang, and he is at pains to emphasize their innocence, even as they brutalize one another and their caretakers, who are shown to be as bemused and tentative (perhaps again due to the larger circumstance?) as their charges and challengers. Toward the middle and end there are hints at art and politics that are elaborated in his later work to greater effect.
What I love about Cary is his commitment to portraying his characters as they understand themselves, and developing narrative accordingly. That takes a great deal of insight, imagination and restraint.
One of these is the theme of all the work, I think, and key to its specific delight and tang.
What I love about Cary is his commitment to portraying his characters as they understand themselves, and developing narrative accordingly. That takes a great deal of insight, imagination and restraint.
One of these is the theme of all the work, I think, and key to its specific delight and tang.
May 22, 2009
This was a good book--I didn't love the plot and the words are written to have an english accent which was a little hard to get used to, but I liked it and am not disappointed in reading it.
April 11, 2015
Beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews