Wyndham Lewis

1977

Book, 20.9 x 13.9 cm, 365 p, language : English, publisher : The Coach House Press, Toronto.
Materials: Ink, paper

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2026/298).

Literary synopsis

The first novel of Wyndham Lewis, was actually written in around 1908-1909 but was not published till 1977. It is a tale where life and art mix in with the world of violence, carried out as theatre. Mrs. Dukes, 65 years of age, has a house in Golden Square. She rents rooms to respectable gentlemen though preferably not foreigners. Her husband left her thirty years ago, with a son, Cole, who is now 34 and lives with his mother and helps her out, though says very little. Mrs. Dukes' Million is a complex plot involving Mr. Nichols, Henry Fane and Lucy, the beautiful half English/half Persian woman Henry Fane saw at the theatre, Surandur Khan and his gang, the rather incompetent police and a gang of Americans, who all seem to be called Passion, and their attempt to get hold of the million pounds. Things go wrong, there are a second and third Mrs. Dukes’ impersonators, in the form of Henry Fane, there is a love affair, there is a house with secret passages and a mysterious butler, a kidnapping, hypnotism, murder and mayhem.

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