A Harlot's Progress
by Dabydeen, David
- Used
- first
- Condition
- Fine, as new
- ISBN 10
- 0099288729
- ISBN 13
- 9780099288725
- Seller
-
Maidenhead, Berkshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Vintage, 2000. 19th imp. p/b. Fine, as new. B (198 x 129). A HARLOT'S PROGRESS reinvents William Hogarth's famous painting of 1732 which tells the story of a whore, a Jewish merchant, a magistrate and a quack doctor bound together by sexual and financial greed. Dabydeen's novel endows Hogarth's characters with alternative potential lives, redeeming them for their cliched status as predators or victims. The protagonist - in Hogarth, a black slave boy, in Dabydeen, London's oldest black inhabitant - is forced to tell his story to the Abolitionists in return for their charity. He refuses however to supply parade of grievances, and to give a simplistic account of beatings, sexual abuses, etc. He will not embark upon yet another fictional journey into the dark nature of slavery for the voyeuristic delight of the English reader. Instead, the old man ties the reader up in knots as deftly as a harlot her client: he spins a tale of myths, half-truths and fantasies; recreating Africa and eighteenth-century London in startlingly poetic ways. What matters to him is the odyssey into poetry, the rich texture of his narrative, not its truthfulness. In this, his fourth novel, David Dabydeen opens up history to myriad imaginary interpretations, repopulating a vanished world with a strange, defiantly vivid and compassionate humanity.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Inklings & Yarnspinners (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- IYC133282
- Title
- A Harlot's Progress
- Author
- Dabydeen, David
- Format/Binding
- P/b
- Book Condition
- New Fine, as new
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- 19th imp
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0099288729
- ISBN 13
- 9780099288725
- Publisher
- Vintage
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 2000
- Pages
- 282
- Size
- B (198 x 129)
- Keywords
- fiction, historical fiction, Hogarth, slavery, Dabydeen
- Bookseller catalogs
- 2nd-hand books;
- X weight
- 0.21 g
Terms of Sale
Inklings & Yarnspinners
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including original shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Inklings & Yarnspinners
Biblio member since 2021
Maidenhead, Berkshire
About Inklings & Yarnspinners
INKLINGS & YARNSPINNERSA new online bookshop forFIRST & SIGNED EDITIONS, RARE BOOKSA particular focus on:- The Oxford Inklings with their Friends & Influences (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield, Williams, Chesterton, Macdonald, Sayers, etc)- Great 20th Century Novelists (e.g. Graham Greene & John le Carré; Anthony Powell & Evelyn Waugh; P. D. James etc)- Great 20th Century Poets (e.g. T. S. Eliot, John Masefield, Walter de la Mare, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Stevie Smith, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, etc)- Christian Theology (e.g. from library sales)
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