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In the Purely Pagan Sense: A Novel
John Lehmann's first novel for many years tells the story of a young and happy homosexual emerging in the 1920s to enjoy, in the purely pagan sense, all that the sensual world has to offer. In these confessions, Jack Marlowe starts off as a golden youth with golden connections. His progress from private to public school and university, leads him gracefully into the arms of the Bloomsbury Group. Soon, his pursuit of sexuality lures him to Europe, to the Berlin of Mr. Norris, the Vienna of lederhosen, and then back to London's blitz where anything goes in the black-out and under the bombers.
Behind the sensual narrative there is also an accurate picture of between-war Europe. The mandarins of London's intelligentsia are not all they seem to be; under the frenzied travesties of Berlin lies the terror of Nazism; and, after the Anschluss, gaiety dies in Vienna. But Jack Marlowe never abandons his hope of a deeper relationship than the frank pursuit of sexual pleasure implies, and some of the most moving pages of the book describe the relationships he entered into after the war, to which this always reviving hope led him on more than one fortunate-unfortunate occasion. At the same time the problems of an homosexual are seriously and wittily considered, not least when he finds himself the not entirely unconsenting object of desire by the opposite sex.
From the first-edition dust jacket (1976)
Behind the sensual narrative there is also an accurate picture of between-war Europe. The mandarins of London's intelligentsia are not all they seem to be; under the frenzied travesties of Berlin lies the terror of Nazism; and, after the Anschluss, gaiety dies in Vienna. But Jack Marlowe never abandons his hope of a deeper relationship than the frank pursuit of sexual pleasure implies, and some of the most moving pages of the book describe the relationships he entered into after the war, to which this always reviving hope led him on more than one fortunate-unfortunate occasion. At the same time the problems of an homosexual are seriously and wittily considered, not least when he finds himself the not entirely unconsenting object of desire by the opposite sex.
From the first-edition dust jacket (1976)
255 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
86 people want to read
About the author
John Lehmann
241 books3 followersJohn Lehmann, the fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond Lehmann and actress Beatrix Lehmann, was educated at Eton and read English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He considered his time at both as "lost years".
After a period as a journalist in Vienna, he returned to England to found the popular periodical New Writing (1936 - 1940) in book format. This literary magazine sought to break down social barriers and published works by working-class authors as well as educated middle-class writers and poets. It proved a great influence on literature of the period and an outlet for writers such as Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, and miner-author B.L. Coombes. Lehmann included many of these authors in his anthology Poems for Spain which he edited with Stephen Spender.
With the onset of the Second World War and paper rationing, New Writing's future was uncertain and so Lehmann wrote New Writing in Europe for Pelican Books, one of the first critical summaries of the writers of the 1930s in which he championed the authors who had been the stars of New Writing - Auden and Spender - and also his close friend Tom Wintringham and Wintringham's ally, the emerging George Orwell. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann to Allen Lane of Penguin Books, who secured paper for The Penguin New Writing a monthly book-magazine, this time in paperback. The first issue featured Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant". Occasional hardback editions combined with the magazine Daylight appeared sporadically, but it was as Penguin New Writing that the magazine survived until 1950.
After joining Leonard and Virginia Woolf as managing director of Hogarth Press between 1938 and 1946 he established his own publishing company, John Lehmann Limited, with his novelist sister Rosamond Lehmann (who had a nine-year affair with one of Lehmann's contributing poets, Cecil Day-Lewis). They published new works by authors such as Sartre and Stendhal, and discovered talents like Thom Gunn and Laurie Lee. He also published the first two books by the cookery writer Elizabeth David, A Book of Mediterranean Food and French Country Cooking.
In 1954 he founded The London Magazine, remaining as editor until 1961, following which he was a frequent lecturer and completed his three-volume autobiography, Whispering Gallery (1955), I Am My Brother (1960) and The Ample Proposition (1966). In The Purely Pagan Sense (1976) is an autobiographical record of his homosexual life in England and pre-war Germany, discreetly written in the form of a novel. He also wrote the biographies Edith Sitwell (1952), Virginia Woolf and her World (1975), Thrown to the Woolfs (1978) and Rupert Brooke (1980).
In 1965 he published Christ the Hunter, a spiritual/autobiographical prose poem which had been broadcast in 1964 on the BBC Third Programme, In 1974 Lehmann published a book of poems, The Reader at Night, hand-printed on handmade paper and hand-bound in an edition of 250 signed copies (Toronto, Basilike, 1974). An essay by Paul Davies about the creation of this book is included in Professor A.T. Tolley's collection, John Lehmann: a Tribute (Ottawa, Carleton University Press, 1987), which also includes pieces by Roy Fuller, Thom Gunn, Charles Osborne, Christopher Levenson, Jeremy Reed, George Woodcock, and others.
After a period as a journalist in Vienna, he returned to England to found the popular periodical New Writing (1936 - 1940) in book format. This literary magazine sought to break down social barriers and published works by working-class authors as well as educated middle-class writers and poets. It proved a great influence on literature of the period and an outlet for writers such as Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, and miner-author B.L. Coombes. Lehmann included many of these authors in his anthology Poems for Spain which he edited with Stephen Spender.
With the onset of the Second World War and paper rationing, New Writing's future was uncertain and so Lehmann wrote New Writing in Europe for Pelican Books, one of the first critical summaries of the writers of the 1930s in which he championed the authors who had been the stars of New Writing - Auden and Spender - and also his close friend Tom Wintringham and Wintringham's ally, the emerging George Orwell. Wintringham reintroduced Lehmann to Allen Lane of Penguin Books, who secured paper for The Penguin New Writing a monthly book-magazine, this time in paperback. The first issue featured Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant". Occasional hardback editions combined with the magazine Daylight appeared sporadically, but it was as Penguin New Writing that the magazine survived until 1950.
After joining Leonard and Virginia Woolf as managing director of Hogarth Press between 1938 and 1946 he established his own publishing company, John Lehmann Limited, with his novelist sister Rosamond Lehmann (who had a nine-year affair with one of Lehmann's contributing poets, Cecil Day-Lewis). They published new works by authors such as Sartre and Stendhal, and discovered talents like Thom Gunn and Laurie Lee. He also published the first two books by the cookery writer Elizabeth David, A Book of Mediterranean Food and French Country Cooking.
In 1954 he founded The London Magazine, remaining as editor until 1961, following which he was a frequent lecturer and completed his three-volume autobiography, Whispering Gallery (1955), I Am My Brother (1960) and The Ample Proposition (1966). In The Purely Pagan Sense (1976) is an autobiographical record of his homosexual life in England and pre-war Germany, discreetly written in the form of a novel. He also wrote the biographies Edith Sitwell (1952), Virginia Woolf and her World (1975), Thrown to the Woolfs (1978) and Rupert Brooke (1980).
In 1965 he published Christ the Hunter, a spiritual/autobiographical prose poem which had been broadcast in 1964 on the BBC Third Programme, In 1974 Lehmann published a book of poems, The Reader at Night, hand-printed on handmade paper and hand-bound in an edition of 250 signed copies (Toronto, Basilike, 1974). An essay by Paul Davies about the creation of this book is included in Professor A.T. Tolley's collection, John Lehmann: a Tribute (Ottawa, Carleton University Press, 1987), which also includes pieces by Roy Fuller, Thom Gunn, Charles Osborne, Christopher Levenson, Jeremy Reed, George Woodcock, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 18, 2015
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does anyone have a time machine I can use? I'm never coming back, though.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does anyone have a time machine I can use? I'm never coming back, though.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 23, 2022
I've read this book more than one time. For me, it's an escape into both the frivolous goings-ons of a homosexual American before the start of the Second World War, while simultaneously functioning as historical smut-fiction. John Lehmann, in this pseudo-autobiography, recounts details of childhood, first lovers, hookups, places, sights, and smells at a level of detail I only wish I could recount. It's choppy and moves quickly from European location to European location, German twink to Austrian twink, etc. But that's what I like about it. It's such an excellent look into the psychology and sexuality of a gay man in a time that is equally as confusing, tense, and wrought with shifting politics. That being said, I know no one who has read this book. I found it at a used book store in rural Ohio and picked it up out of sheer curiosity. It reveals the life of homosexuals in the best light, while also showing the dirtier, illicit side of things. I would recommend this novel to anyone who's looking for a true escape into a horny, historic world.
December 16, 2018
Frank, lightly fictionalized chronicle of the author's sexual history as a gay man in the mid-20th century. Despite graphic sex scenes, the story mostly plods from encounter to encounter in dull, detached prose.
April 2, 2013
Entertaining story of a slut!
November 11, 2025
An unashamedly sexual coming-of-age + road trip story.
The narrator discovers himself through his encounters with others at various stages of his life. He seems to be searching for self-acceptance via sexual fulfilment and while he does achieve genuine connection, the encounters he discusses are mainly one-offs or short-term relationships. At the end of the book, the narrator reflects on his desires and experiences with great emotional honesty and pragmatism.
Beautifully written and atmospheric.
The narrator discovers himself through his encounters with others at various stages of his life. He seems to be searching for self-acceptance via sexual fulfilment and while he does achieve genuine connection, the encounters he discusses are mainly one-offs or short-term relationships. At the end of the book, the narrator reflects on his desires and experiences with great emotional honesty and pragmatism.
Beautifully written and atmospheric.
November 21, 2023
Lehmann wrote a multi-volume autobiography that is so arid only the most motivated will read it. However, this is his sex life that he didn't put into his autobiography! As such it's a rake's progress of rogering gorgeous youths across (mostly pre-WWII) Europe. The hardback features a ravishing cover, set with lovely Optima type. So a collector's item, including for Blond & Briggs fans.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews