Lost Empires edition by JB Priestley David Burrill Barry Cryer Roy Hudd Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Lost Empires edition by JB Priestley David Burrill Barry Cryer Roy Hudd Literature Fiction eBooks 
Lost Empires
by J. B. Priestley
Introduced by Barry Cryer and Roy Hudd
Additional content
A First Word by Tom Priestley
Variety was his Spice of Life by Michael Nelson
Lost Empires is J. B. Priestley’s late masterpiece. The First World War is looming and the music halls are thriving. Into the backstage world of dingy lodging houses, outrageous characters and decaying variety stages comes Richard Herncastle, an aspiring painter who has agreed to travel the country with his Uncle Nick, the half lovable, half-monster, master illusionist. Once inside this comic and tragic world Richard becomes caught in a triangle of love, jealousy, temptation and sexual adventure.
Vividly imagined, authentic and richly-coloured, Lost Empires is a humorous and occasionally disturbing coming-of-age story as well as a haunting portrait of a way of life and a society soon to change forever.
“His best for many books… Conveys a marvellous sense of period.”
Sunday Telegraph
A Major novel. Nostalgic but often disturbing” Sunday Express
“If you've read this before, embark on a return journey. If you haven't, I envy you.” Barry Cryer
“My favourite of all his work… a storyteller supreme, a master of his craft.” Roy Hudd
“Priestley looks not only inwards at his characters, but outwards, towards the great events that shape their lives, outwards at history.” John Braine
Lost Empires edition by JB Priestley David Burrill Barry Cryer Roy Hudd Literature Fiction eBooks
JB Priestley isn't read much these days, and I had never read him when a friend, noticing that I was talking on Facebook about nonfiction books about the theater, suggested LOST EMPIRES. In it Priestley tells the story of a teenage boy, an aspiring artist, who accepts an offer from his uncle to be his assistant in the magic act his uncle does in music halls -- so-called "empires" all over England. He's thrown into a dizzying world of beauty and ego and rivalry, with two very distinct kinds of lives: those who are on the bright stage and those in the audience. It's a fascinating and at times very funny book, almost Dickensian in some ways (although Priestley, in his somewhat quarrelsome autobiography, feels that some critics' comparisons between him and Dickens demonstrate that they haven't understood either writer), and Priestley even throws in a murder mystery to keep the kettle on the boil. He wrote the book after most of the "empires" were indeed lost, abandoned by audiences who preferred motion pictures, which only one character in the book has the wit to see as the coming thing, so the image I was left with was sort of a ghostly vision of brightness and beauty on a tiny stage, too far away to hear the words or music, and no one watching. This is a great introduction to Priestley's work.Product details
|
Tags : Lost Empires - Kindle edition by JB Priestley, David Burrill, Barry Cryer, Roy Hudd. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Lost Empires.,ebook,JB Priestley, David Burrill, Barry Cryer, Roy Hudd,Lost Empires,Great Northern Books,Fiction General
People also read other books :
- 100K Kiddi-Piggy Bank How To Have $100,000 For Each Child By Their 18th Birthday eBook Bradly Parker
- Marina A vida por uma causa (Portuguese Edition) eBook Marilia De Camargo Cesar, Prefácio de Fernando Meirelles
- Density Matrix Theory and Applications (Springer Series on Atomic, Optical, and Plasma Physics) Karl Blum 9783642430954 Books
- Dead Little Mean Girl (9780373212415) Eva Darrows Books
- In a Different Key The Story of Autism John Donvan, Caren Zucker 9780307985705 Books
Lost Empires edition by JB Priestley David Burrill Barry Cryer Roy Hudd Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
If you have seen the video the original book is a must read. A wonderful writer who never goes out of date even though his subjects and writings vividly describe situations over the first half of the last century.
Wonderful, loving picture of life on the British variety halls in the 1930s; marvellously entertaining. No-one who loves theatre should miss it. Probably Priestley's best novel.
Vivid journey to the music halls of post WWI England. Rich characters, alive with romance, lust and grit. My favorite read this year. Beautifully written. Can't wait to read more of Priestly's work.
Have read this before years ago and found it still very enjoyable. The television version also very good but impossible to fit all the story in.
Read this book 30 years ago and remembered it all those years. Looking for it again I learn it was a massive hit in the UK, even inspiring a tv show. Lovely book of interesting sequential stories in a long gone world. Very rewarding read.
In his follow-up to the amazing THE GOOD COMPANIONS, Priestly returns to the music halls of England, fading even as he was writing the book, to describe a brightly lighted but disappearing world of eccentrics, artists, eccentric artists, and their exploiters and audiences. It's beautifully written, extremely funny in places, and sad with its overtones that this whole world is on its way to being preserved in amber. In this and THE GOOD COMPANIONS, Priestly preserved it with genuine love and a Dickensian gift for detail and characterization that make him, in my opinion, the best Dickensian writer ever who was not actually Charles Dickens. If you're interested in theater or just good writing, this is well worth your time,
JB Priestley isn't read much these days, and I had never read him when a friend, noticing that I was talking on Facebook about nonfiction books about the theater, suggested LOST EMPIRES. In it Priestley tells the story of a teenage boy, an aspiring artist, who accepts an offer from his uncle to be his assistant in the magic act his uncle does in music halls -- so-called "empires" all over England. He's thrown into a dizzying world of beauty and ego and rivalry, with two very distinct kinds of lives those who are on the bright stage and those in the audience. It's a fascinating and at times very funny book, almost Dickensian in some ways (although Priestley, in his somewhat quarrelsome autobiography, feels that some critics' comparisons between him and Dickens demonstrate that they haven't understood either writer), and Priestley even throws in a murder mystery to keep the kettle on the boil. He wrote the book after most of the "empires" were indeed lost, abandoned by audiences who preferred motion pictures, which only one character in the book has the wit to see as the coming thing, so the image I was left with was sort of a ghostly vision of brightness and beauty on a tiny stage, too far away to hear the words or music, and no one watching. This is a great introduction to Priestley's work.
0 Response to "∎ [PDF] Lost Empires edition by JB Priestley David Burrill Barry Cryer Roy Hudd Literature Fiction eBooks"
Post a Comment