John Wayne

Nuncle And Other Stories

London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1960.

Used.
Excellent conditoin.

Item #3326

Hardcover.
Dust Jacket.

265 pp.

First Edition.

John Wain's Nuncle and Other Stories was first published in hardback in the UK by Macmillan in 1960, although this copy is, in fact, the second impression, issued in the same month (November) as the first printing. Wain, whose profile has, er, waned in recent years, was a poet and critic as well as a novelist, and a friend and contemporary of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, with whom he was associated in The Movement. He was also linked, like Amis, to the Angry Young Men, although neither author really fitted that bill. Reading some of the stories in Nuncle, Amis was the writer who most readily sprang to (my) mind, even before I'd learned of their association; Wain shares in common with Amis a similar wit and a preoccupation – at least with the early Amis – with campus life, and a willingness to twist the knife: the opening story, "Master Richard", about a toddler burdened with adult consciousness, is a gleefully maleficent tale leavened by a late-dawning humanity that in turn leads to a bleak ending. That said, Amis is, I think, the better writer – but then as far as I'm concerned there are few writers as stylish and elegant as Kingsley Amis, so that's really not much of a criticism.

Price: $40.00