Author: Taunton, Raymond
Title: The Presence of the Kindly Patriach
Description: A.C.Fifield, 1913. Hardcover. 96p a surreal short story.Reviewed inLight - a Review f Psychical,Occult and Mystical reasearch in 1913: The Presence of the Kindly Patriarch ' is at once a story and a parable ). The author, Mr. Raymond Taunton, has a picturesque and arresting style, and he sets out a series of dramatic episodes in what we may call the deeper Gilbertian vein. That is to say, we get Topsy-turvydom, with a moral as well as a merely diverting purpose. Under the magical influence of Mr. Roulade, a mysterious wonder-worker, a number of queer social transformations are worked. There is, for instance, the establishment of 1 Honesty Day ' when everyone, willy nilly, has for once to meet the world in his or her true likeness. Here is an example of what took place: One man had gigantic grasping limbs and the body of a spider. Another rushed down the street with an open cave in the breast where there should have been a heart and a third balanced a great head upon a misshapen body, pointing with a melancholy grimace to the forehead which was all he prided himself in. . . a fourth who had set the town vibrating with his fame as a prize-fighter, came along in a body thick with matted hair, and a face all jaw and teeth, and was ultimately put forcibly in a stable pending inquiries for a lost gorilla. The town was full of strange sights that day only the truly honest could bear the ordeal. Clean and tight without marks r signatures. 96p in original greyboards. See scans. . Very Good

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