Angels & Insects: Two NovellasThese two fascinating novellas, like A. S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning novel Possession, are set in the mid-nineteenth century, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance. "Morpho Eugenia" is a lively Gothic fable of the Earthly Paradise, of the Victorian obsession with Darwinian theories of breeding and sexuality and the parallels between insect and human society - the capture and taming of nature, whether it be a young woman in a country house or a rare butterfly, gleaming in the forests of the Amazon. "The Conjugial Angel" concerns Tennyson's In Memoriam, published in 1850, mourning the death seventeen years before of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister Emily. A philosophical ghost story, bizarre, comic, and moving, in which fictive mediums meet "real" characters, it explores the contemporary preoccupation with God and life after death. Resonant, magical, entirely original, this is A. S. Bryant at her best. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Adamson Alfred Alfred Tennyson Alfred's angels appeared Arthur Arthur Hallam Arturo asked automatic writing beautiful believe birds body breath buff ermine butterflies Captain Jesse cloud cold colour creatures dance dark dead death Divine earth Edgar Emanuel Swedenborg Emily Jesse Emily Tennyson Emperor Moth Eugenia eyes face father fear feel felt female fingers flesh flowers girls glass hair Hallam hands happy Harald Alabaster Hawke head Hearnshaw Heaven hope human imagine Jesse's kind knew Lady Alabaster living looked male marriage Matty Crompton mind Miss Crompton Miss Mead Morpho Eugenia Moth Mouffet mouth nature nest never observed Papagay Pistis Sophia poem Queen rose round Rowena séance seen sense Seth smell soft Somersby Sophy Sheekhy speak spirit staring stood Swedenborg tell Tennyson terrible things thought told trees voice wanted watching William William Adamson wings woman Wood Ants words young