A Winnowing by Robert Hugh Benson (HQ402)

Undated Circa 1910: First Edition / Hardcover / Very Good Condition

Original blue embossed cloth with gilt titles on the spine. 323 clean slightly age-toned pages. Boards slightly rubbed and faded with time consistent with age. A very scarce original publication. (HQ402)

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Mixing such seemingly incongruous elements as social satire, near-slapstick, and obsession with death, "A Winnowing," first published in 1910, is the first of Robert Hugh Benson's "mainstream novels." An undeservedly overlooked work today, the novel flays Edwardian society in terms that bring to mind the comedy of P. G. Wodehouse, and the black humor of Evelyn Waugh. The influence of "A Winnowing" is evident in Evelyn Waugh's take on the funeral industry in Southern California ("The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy"). This edition features a foreword by Benson scholar Michael D. Greaney.

Robert Hugh Benson was an Anglican pastor who converted to Catholicism and was received into the Church in 1903. He was ordained priest in 1904. Youngest son of Edward White Benson (Archbishop of Canterbury) and his wife, Mary, and younger brother of Edward Frederic Benson, he was lauded in his own day as one of the leading figures in English literature, having written the notable book Lord of the World. Google Books...