
A Book for All and None
Clare Morgan(Author)
Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 16. February 2012
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-0-7538-2892-2 (ISBN)
Description
A beautiful, haunting literary debut from an extraordinary talent and future prize-winner.
One crisp, clear day, across a cobbled Oxford street, Raymond Greatorex catches sight of Beatrice Kopus. Raymond, a brilliant but ageing don whose specialty is Nietzsche, has withdrawn into a lonely world of scholarship. Beatrice is in Oxford researching Virginia Woolf, and distancing herself from her husband, Walter. When Beatrice reappears in Raymond's life, they embark on a love affair.
Beatrice becomes convinced of a link between Friedrich Nietzsche, Louise von Salome - the young Russian emigre who bewitched him - and Virginia Woolf. As Walter faces ruin in his glittering career, Beatrice and Raymond seek refuge in the past. Stories of Nietzsche's madness and his obsession with von Salome become intertwined with those of Raymond's ancestors, and their beautiful, crumbling home on the Welsh borders.
But there are even greater mysteries linking the past to the present, and in their quest to find one set of answers, Beatrice and Raymond stand to uncover a secret that will profoundly change their understanding of who they really are.
One crisp, clear day, across a cobbled Oxford street, Raymond Greatorex catches sight of Beatrice Kopus. Raymond, a brilliant but ageing don whose specialty is Nietzsche, has withdrawn into a lonely world of scholarship. Beatrice is in Oxford researching Virginia Woolf, and distancing herself from her husband, Walter. When Beatrice reappears in Raymond's life, they embark on a love affair.
Beatrice becomes convinced of a link between Friedrich Nietzsche, Louise von Salome - the young Russian emigre who bewitched him - and Virginia Woolf. As Walter faces ruin in his glittering career, Beatrice and Raymond seek refuge in the past. Stories of Nietzsche's madness and his obsession with von Salome become intertwined with those of Raymond's ancestors, and their beautiful, crumbling home on the Welsh borders.
But there are even greater mysteries linking the past to the present, and in their quest to find one set of answers, Beatrice and Raymond stand to uncover a secret that will profoundly change their understanding of who they really are.
Reviews / Votes
This intensely academic novel is stuffed to bursting with good things... Past and present are very neatly plaited together. - The TimesA formidable debut. - Independent on Sunday
A wonderfully constructed edifice; ideas, possibilities, emotions, dreams bounce and echo from one strand to another, creating a subtle meditation on the limitations of and the potential for love and transcendence. - Tim Pears, Oxford-based author
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Orion Publishing Co
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 206 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
285 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7538-2892-2 (9780753828922)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Clare Morgan
A Book for All and None
E-Book
06/2011
1st Edition
Weidenfeld and Nicholson
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Clare Morgan is Director of the Master of Studies in Creative Writing at Oxford University. She gained her MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she worked with Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. Her stories have been widely anthologised and have been commissioned by BBC Radio 4. She lives in Oxford and Wales.