by Stephen Gilbert
Preface by Patricia Craig
"A
writer of distinction." - E. M. Forster
"[A]n
unusual, talented book with many good things in it. [...] Stephen
Gilbert is an interesting writer, whose material is out of the
ordinary run of things." - Anthony Powell
Marcus
Brownlow was a strange and imaginative young schoolboy whose dreams
sometimes foretold the future. Now he's nineteen, unemployed,
directionless, and not ready to grow up. An unexpected invitation
from a school friend to visit him at the house of his eccentric
millionaire uncle Mr. Burnaby seems to hint at adventure and a change
of fortune. But what Marcus doesn't know is that Mr. Burnaby wants
his help in a series of strange experiments whose ultimate goal is to
discover what happens to the soul after death. What begins as
harmless fun as Mr. Burnaby teaches Marcus how to project his spirit
out from his body quickly becomes more sinister, and may lead to a
horrible fate even more terrifying than death. . . .
Stephen
Gilbert (1912-2010) is best remembered for his novel Ratman's
Notebooks (1968),
twice filmed as Willard,
and for his friendship as a young man with the much older novelist
Forrest Reid. The
Burnaby Experiments (1952)
is a brilliant and unclassifiable novel, part fantasy, part science
fiction, part horror, and partly a thinly veiled and blackly humorous
fictionalization of Gilbert's difficult relationship with Reid. This
first-ever reprinting of Gilbert's scarce novel coincides with its
60th anniversary and features the original jacket art by legendary
book designer Berthold Wolpe.