Garnett, David
Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1892-1981) UK author, member of the famous Garnett writing family; those of interest here including his grandfather, Richard Garnett, his father, Edward Garnett, and his mother, the translator Constance Garnett (1862-1946); Garnett was also an intimate member of the Bloomsbury Group. His first novel under his own name is also his most famous, the fantasy Lady into Fox (1922 chap); like its inferior successor, Vercors' Sylva (1961; trans 1962), this is an allegory of metamorphosis, in this instance a demure wife is transformed inexorably into a vixen, with tragic results. A Feminist reading of the book is both elucidating and inescapable; it was famously parodied by Christopher Ward (1868-1943) in Gentleman into Goose (1924 chap). A Man in the Zoo (1924) plays lightly with the constricting atmosphere of most Zoo stories by supplying a human volunteer. The Grasshoppers Come (April 1931 The Storyteller; 1931) fascinatingly combines aviation and allegory in a borderline-sf tale whose emotional aura manifests a longing for the Pax Aeronautica. Two by Two: A Story of Survival (1963) retells the story of Noah (quite possibly a portrait of Garnett's friend T H White) and the Flood; Ulterior Motives (1966) turns on an Invention called Telefaction, which (it is claimed) can transmit matter through space; The White/Garnett Letters (coll 1968), which he edited, are of great value to students of both his work and White's. He translated André Maurois's A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles (1927; trans 1928). [JC]
David Garnett
born Brighton, Sussex: 9 March 1892
died Chateau de Charry, Montcuq, France: 17 February 1981
works (selected)
- Lady into Fox (London: Chatto and Windus, 1922) [chap: illus/hb/Ray Garnett]
- A Man in the Zoo (London: Chatto and Windus, 1924) [illus/hb/Ray Garnett]
- Lady into Fox and A Man in the Zoo (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1945) [omni of the above two: pb/nonpictorial]
- The Grasshoppers Come (London: Chatto and Windus, 1931) [first appeared April 1931 The Storyteller: hb/]
- A Terrible Day (London: William Jackson, 1932) [story: chap: hb/]
- Two by Two: A Story of Survival (London: Longmans, 1963) [hb/]
- Ulterior Motives (London: Longmans, 1966) [hb/nonpictorial]
- Purl and Plain, and Other Stories (London: Macmillan, 1973) [hb/]
- The Master Cat: The True and Unexpurgated Story of Puss in Boots (London: Macmillan, 1974) [illus/Nerissa Garnett: hb/Peter Pendray]
works as translator
- Andre Maurois. Voyage aux pays des Articoles (Paris: Jacques Schiffrin, Éditions de la Pléïade, 1927) [chap: pb/Alexandre Alexeïeff]
- Andre Maurois. A Voyage to the Island of the Articoles (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928) [chap: trans of the above: illus/hb/Edward Carrick]
nonfiction
- The White/Garnett Letters (London: Jonathan Cape, 1968) edited by David Garnett [anth: letters between Garnett and T H White: hb/M Mohan nonpictorial]
links
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