Ashe of Rings, and Other Writings (Recovered Classics) Book

If you've never heard of the British writer Mary Butts, you're in good company; even in her own time, Butts never received the recognition she craved or her work deserved. During her lifetime, Butts was better known for her sexual adventures, drug use, and unconventional friends (Alistair Crowley numbered among them) than for her writing. When she died, her work faded from literary notice and Butts seemed destined to remain in obscurity forever. Then McPherson and Company began republishing her work in 1992. The latest edition is Ashe of Rings, a collection comprising Butts's first novel of the same name, a novella entitled Imaginary Letters, and three essays--two concerning environmental issues of the day and one on ghost fiction. The novel, in particular, is of interest. A semi-autobiographical novel about World War I, it is tinged with the occult (not surprising, given Butts's interest in the subject) and reveals Butts's daring originality and keen intelligence. The essays, on the other hand, show Butts to have been a remarkably prescient thinker and a fine literary critic. Ashe of Rings gives readers already familiar with the work of Butts's more famous contemporaries, including Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Ernest Hemingway, and Evelyn Waugh, a welcome introduction to an old "new" voice. Read More