Genius Friend: G. B. Edwards and The Book of Ebenezer Le Page - Softcover

Edward Chaney

4.11

9 ratings by Goodreads

9780992879105: Genius Friend: G. B. Edwards and The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0992879108 ISBN 13: 9780992879105

Publisher: Blue Ormer Publishing, 2015

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Since its publication in 1981, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page by Gerald Basil Edwards has been recognised as the greatest work of literature by a native Guernseyman, and indeed one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Edward Chaney befriended its reclusive author, Gerald Edwards, encouraged him to finish the novel and had it published after he bequeathed him the manuscript. This two-part biography reconstructs Gerald's Guernsey origins and his status as the 'genius friend' of a group of writers who contributed to Middleton Murry's Adelphi in the 1920s. It then documents his descent into obscurity in the 1940s. The second part relates how Chaney met Edwards in Dorset in 1972 and how the novel eventually came to be published and was enthusiastically received. '... we always thought of him as 'our genius friend'.' J.S. Collis, The Spectator (31 July 1982)

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Review:

'The letters show an impressive blend of honesty and self-humour, besides a frequent Orwellian excellence of plain English prose ... and I hope that one day Mr Chaney will consider publishing parts of them.' --John Fowles, introduction to The Book of Ebenezer Le Page

'G.B. Edwards was a cryptic and mystifying man, a writer with rare and sometimes perverse gifts, whose character mixed elements of the rascal and of the recluse, who yet produced one astounding classic, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. In his last years he gave his trust and affection to Edward Chaney, whose matchless enthusiasm, perseverance and insight make him the best possible biographer of this puzzling misfit Guernseyman.' --Richard Davenport-Hines

[Professor Chaney has] 'written a work of considerable research and scholarship ... This is a remarkable book which sets out to show us that the half-forgotten Gerald Edwards, author of a single magnum opus, should (like Lampedusa) be acknowledged as one of the great novelists of the twentieth century. Writing with skill and conviction, calling on some impressive witnesses (in particular John Stewart Collis) to give evidence, Chaney makes a powerful case that will surprise and impress readers today.' --Sir Michael Holroyd

About the Author:

Edward Chaney is the Professor of Fine and Decorative Arts at Southampton Solent University, Visiting Professor at the New College of the Humanities and Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He was an art student when he met Gerald Edwards but went on to do a PhD at the Warburg Institute in London and taught at Pisa University for six years. He has published numerous books, specialising in the history of collecting, the Grand Tour and 20th century British art. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and in 2003 was made a Commendatore of the Italian Republic.

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