Published in 1961, it was the first volume of what Richard Hughes described as “a sort of War and Peace” for the twentieth century: a huge work to be called “The Human Predicament.” Richard Hughes occupied a singular position in English letters. His 1929 novel A High Wind ...
Think back now to the previous winter, when Mitzi’s second retina slipped and she lost the last vestige of sight. She was always a rather detached and withdrawn sort of girl; and the shock of this total blindness at seventeen was bound to turn her in even more on herself, or on God—and that prime...
Earthquake, fire, rain, and deadlier vegetation, did their work quickly.ﾠ One scene is very clear in my mind, in Jamaica. There was a vast stone-built house called Derby Hill (where the Parkers lived). It had been the center of a very prosperous plantation. With Emancipation, like many others, tha...
By this time Ling’s father had grown stern with him: and the boy’s hatred deepened. But still he never gave it expression. This was not only a matter of self-control: it was a curious defect in the hatred itself. When alone he might be filled with the white fervour of parricide; but whenever he f...