The Prince and the Wild Geese

by Brigid Brophy, Julia Taaffe (Illustrator)

Brigid Brophy, Julia Taaffe, St. Martin's Press geese, wild, prince 62 1983 English 0312645511 9780312645519 Hardcover (1st)

62 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Brigid Antonia Brophy, Lady Levey (12 June 1929, in Ealing, Middlesex, England – 7 August 1995, in Louth, Lincolnshire, England) was an English novelist, essayist, critic, biographer, and dramatist. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists since 1960, S. J. Newman described her as "one of the oddest, most brilliant, and most enduring of [the] 1960s symptoms."

She was a feminist and pacifist who expressed controversial opinions on marriage, the Vietnam War, religious education in schools, sex (she was openly bisexual), and pornography. She was a vocal campaigner for animal rights and vegetarianism. A 1965 Sunday Times article by Brophy is credited by psychologist Richard D. Ryder with having triggered the formation of the animal rights movement in England.

Because of her outspokenness, she was labeled many things, including "one of our leading literary shrews" by a Times Literary Supplement reviewer. "A lonely, ubiquitous toiler in the weekend graveyards, she has scored some direct hits on massive targets: Kingsley Amis, Henry Miller, Professor Wilson Knight."

Brophy was married to art historian Sir Michael Levey. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984, which took her life 11 years later at the age of 66.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

It is 1832, Rome. A young Russian man, Grégoire Gagarin, courts an Irish woman, Julia Taaffe, with his paintings. Brigid Brophy tells their story in seventeen short chapters explicating those paintings. The book appears to be a children’s book, squarish and illustrated, and indeed the Bookshop had it filed with children’s picture books, but it resembles more a fairytale of sorts for adults, somewhat genre bending. It is a true story. But there are few fireworks here for my interest. The paintings are quite nice and Brophy’s readings of them fine enough ; but the turgid, documentary style leaves one desirous of more romanticism and less classicism. Recommended for Brophy completionists, Austen etc aficionados, students of the time period and its arts, and perhaps those looking for particularly peculiar kinds of books.

A painting I enjoyed.


And several more generously provided by the internet :: http://van-poperin.livejournal.com/15...#