Monk Dawson (1969)
Piers Paul Read
With a new introduction by the author
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award
and the Hawthornden Prize
Book Description
As a boy, Edward Dawson is sent to an exclusive Catholic boarding school, where at a young age he develops an ambition to do good in the world. Believing he has a religious vocation, Dawson takes his monastic vows and enters the Church, first teaching and later working as a parish priest. But when he finds himself increasingly questioning the value of religious work in an irreligious world and doubting his own belief in God, Dawson leaves behind the only life he has ever known and goes to London. There he is taken up by a rich young widow and becomes her lover, entering her circle of decadent, fashionable friends and following a precipitous path towards debauchery and disillusion . . .
Piers Paul Read’s third novel, Monk Dawson (1969), was a tremendous critical success, winning both the Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize and confirming his reputation as one of the outstanding novelists of his generation. This edition, the first in more than 25 years, features a new introduction by the author.
Piers Paul Read
With a new introduction by the author
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award
and the Hawthornden Prize
Book Description
As a boy, Edward Dawson is sent to an exclusive Catholic boarding school, where at a young age he develops an ambition to do good in the world. Believing he has a religious vocation, Dawson takes his monastic vows and enters the Church, first teaching and later working as a parish priest. But when he finds himself increasingly questioning the value of religious work in an irreligious world and doubting his own belief in God, Dawson leaves behind the only life he has ever known and goes to London. There he is taken up by a rich young widow and becomes her lover, entering her circle of decadent, fashionable friends and following a precipitous path towards debauchery and disillusion . . .
Piers Paul Read’s third novel, Monk Dawson (1969), was a tremendous critical success, winning both the Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize and confirming his reputation as one of the outstanding novelists of his generation. This edition, the first in more than 25 years, features a new introduction by the author.
reviews
‘A remarkable novel. Witty, even cynical, observation leads to a conclusion profoundly moving.’ - Graham Greene
‘Read is undoubtedly one of the most talented novelists of our generation.’ - Francis King
‘[A] profoundly serious contemporary writer whose merits . . . are consistently underrated.’ - D. J. Taylor
‘All dark velvet and dry ice . . . If you are caught up by it, as I was, you will devour it at a single sitting and savor its resonances.’ - New York Times
‘Rare immaculately constructed work . . . so pleasurable you wish it would never end.’ - Evening Standard
‘Read is undoubtedly one of the most talented novelists of our generation.’ - Francis King
‘[A] profoundly serious contemporary writer whose merits . . . are consistently underrated.’ - D. J. Taylor
‘All dark velvet and dry ice . . . If you are caught up by it, as I was, you will devour it at a single sitting and savor its resonances.’ - New York Times
‘Rare immaculately constructed work . . . so pleasurable you wish it would never end.’ - Evening Standard
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1939140579 ISBN-13: 978-1939140579 $17.99 US, 188 pp. Trade paper Published 2013 |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Piers Paul Read was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire in 1941, the third son of poet and critic Sir Herbert Read. He was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, which helped inspire his third novel, Monk Dawson (1969). He read history at St John’s College, Cambridge, and received his BA in 1961 and MA in 1962.
Read gained immediate notice with his first two books, Game in Heaven with Tussy Marx (1966) and The Junkers (1968); the latter earned the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Monk Dawson (1969) won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic and earned both the Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize.
Read has published sixteen novels to date, most of them well received by critics, including A Married Man (1979), A Season in the West (1988), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and, more recently, The Death of a Pope (2009) and The Misogynist (2010).
Among his output of nonfiction, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), remains his best-known work, selling more than five million copies worldwide and providing the basis for a 1993 film adaptation.
Read married his wife, Emily Boothby, in 1967; they have four children and four grandchildren and live in London.
Read gained immediate notice with his first two books, Game in Heaven with Tussy Marx (1966) and The Junkers (1968); the latter earned the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Monk Dawson (1969) won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic and earned both the Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize.
Read has published sixteen novels to date, most of them well received by critics, including A Married Man (1979), A Season in the West (1988), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and, more recently, The Death of a Pope (2009) and The Misogynist (2010).
Among his output of nonfiction, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), remains his best-known work, selling more than five million copies worldwide and providing the basis for a 1993 film adaptation.
Read married his wife, Emily Boothby, in 1967; they have four children and four grandchildren and live in London.