Volume 490 pages
The Horse's Mouth
About the book
Joyce Cary wrote two trilogies, or 'triptychs' as he later called them, and both are Faber Finds. The first comprises
Herself Surprised (1941),
To Be a Pilgrim (1942) and
The Horse's Mouth (1944).
The Horse's Mouth is a portrait of an artistic temperament. Its protagonist, Gulley Gimson, is an impoverished painter who scorns conventional good behaviour. If a bad citizen, he is a good artist, so wholly preoccupied with his art that he is willing to endure any privation. For Gulley there is but one morality: to be a painter.
'Joyce Cary is an important and exciting writer… To use Tennyson's phrase, he is a Lord of Language … if you like rich writing full of gusto and accurate original character drawing, you will get it from
The Horse's Mouth.' John Betjeman,
Daily Herald
