Search results for ""Author Stuart Evans""

"The Caves of Alienation" is a story of unfolding revelation about the difficult, fascinating character of Caradock. His family made their fortune from the industry of Wales, but his cosseted childhood in the Welsh valleys only fueled his desire to leave, and his efforts to escape are explored through the multi-voiced narrative. Then there are his crucial first encounters with sex, his literary success in London and his final withdrawal to Wales. But it is the riveting manner of the telling which gives "The Caves of Alienation" its virtuosity. It is told from a variety of viewpoints, some conflicting, all interrelated. Friends and enemies, literary rivals, lovers, critics, the 'official biography', even television and radio documentaries jostle each other in the narrative with their own (sometimes feigning) fragments of truth. Caradock's own novels and essays play a vital part in the story. All this makes for an exhilarating, kaleidoscopic read, funny and profound by turns, yet never flinching in its portrayal of Caradock and his deepest preoccupations. The phrase tour de force is a tired one, but it has seldom been more justified than in the case of this exceptional novel.

Read more less

Surveying for the first time the Century Guild of Artists and its influential periodical, the Century Guild Hobby Horse, this original publication asserts the significance of the Guild in the development of the Arts and Crafts movement and its modernist successors. The founders of the Century Guild - architect Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo and his 18-year-old assistant Herbert Percy Horne (afterwards joined by the artist and poet Selwyn Image) - were driven by the ambition to answer John Ruskin's radical call to regenerate art and society. Motivated by the concept of 'the Unity of Art', the Guild embraced a spectrum of arts which included architecture, painting, sculpture, metalwork, textiles and stained glass. It also reached out to music and literature, aiming to educate its public in practical form. Skilfully weaving chronology with the impressive artistic achievements of the collective, the authors also draw out the lively personalities of each of the protagonists and their wider circle. For anyone fascinated by the Arts and Crafts movement, this is essential reading.

Read more less