Wainewright the Poisoner
Motion, Andrew
Sold by Linda Corrigan, Knutsford, United Kingdom
AbeBooks Seller since 24 February 2003
Used - Hardcover
Condition: Used - Near fine
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketSold by Linda Corrigan, Knutsford, United Kingdom
AbeBooks Seller since 24 February 2003
Condition: Used - Near fine
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketA Near Fine copy in a Finer dust jacket of the first hardback edition of this biography, signed by the author on the title page. Dust Jacket: black matt laminated paper with colour reproduction of and old masters painting to all faces, white and blue lettering to front and spine, and white lettering to rear; black and white photo of author to rear flap; very bright and clean, no visible signs of shelf wear; not price clipped. Cover: black cloth covered boards with white lettering to spine; very bright and clean; no visible signs of shelf wear. Internally: very clean and tightly bound; no markings, inscriptions or book plates apart form the author signature (as above); some slight darkening to page edges; otherwise in excellent condition. Illustrated with 2 sets of 8 black and white plates bound in near centre. xx, 306 pp.
Seller Inventory # 003762
This is a bold departure by Motion, and sometimes it works brilliantly: particularly in the latter chapters, where we follow the protagonist as he is transported to Van Diemen's Land. Motion often manages passages of a narrative brilliance and poetic intensity: the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" style shooting of an albatross from the prison ship, for instance; or Wainewright's lyrical apprehension of the sounds of the Australian port, "a diminuendo as men and women going home to their families, and an undertow of big warehouse doors being drawn shut, of wicks purring as they were turned down in lamps". On other occasions the reader can feel that Motion is introducing facts rather awkwardly to flesh out his subject. We can imagine the narrator hurrying himself along with a "now I have stammered long enough", but can we really imagine him adding "(I never did stammer, just a lisp, occasionally)"? However, Motion uses all the vividness and subtlety at his command to convey the curious mixture of the appealing and the appalling in Wainewright's make-up, and to illustrate his thesis "that good and evil grow on the same stem". "How does a person imagine his own brain?" Motion's Wainewright wonders: "to one it might resemble a newfangled machine composed of rods and pistons, giving a whiff of steam as a notion is driven forward. To another it might be a calm lake, troubled only by the shadow of a cloud...The idea I have of my own mind is this: it is a labyrinth".
Overall, Motion's command of an absolutely convincing 19th-century idiom is a marvel to read. An intriguing experiment in biographical writing. --Adam Roberts
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