New free Ebook Edition of Forgotten 1942 Novel
The Houston ebook publisher Personville Press is releasing an ebook version of the 1942 American novel, My Heart For Hostage by Pulitzer-prize winning poet, Robert Hillyer (1895-1961). This novel is no longer protected by U.S. copyright. This new edition includes a long critical study about Robert Hillyer's novel by Personville editor Robert Nagle and a sampling of Robert Hillyer's poetry.
Read the entire ebook online: Start here .
Download the EPUB (5.7 MB)or the PDF (3.5MB). Feel free to share these files noncommercially!
Purchasing options: You can also buy the ebook at a modest price at Payhip | Amazon US | Amazon UK | | Google |. Only $1.75 $1 until Nov 30.
Book Description
Paris, 1919. A young American officer named Edward falls in love with a French girl named Germaine and tries to convince her to marry him. But Germaine keeps avoiding the question. Germaine is sweet and lovely, but also opinionated and immature. She's the perfect companion for Paris night life -- and a master at posing as different people and telling white lies that amuse and confuse her boyfriend. She's a poet ... or is she? Is she too whimsical and crazy for a conventional-minded man like Edward? Or is Edward too narrow-minded? Maybe they are not really in love. Or maybe Edward's suspicions are ruining everything. This beautiful and brooding novel explores the blossoming relationship and the doubts that threaten to derail it. Can they transform the initial spark into something more lasting?
Described by New York Times as a "superbly written book, written perhaps as only a poet with and expert in the discipline of verse could write," this overlooked 1942 novel by Pulitzer-winning poet Robert Hillyer is now available as an ebook. This edition includes lots of bonus material: a long biographical portrait of the author, an examination of the novel's major themes, a discussion of the novel's ambiguities and parallels between the life of the protagonist and Hillyer himself (who volunteered for the ambulance corps during WW1 and shared a Paris flat with novelist John Dos Passos). This edition also includes a sampling of poetry Hillyer wrote while living in Europe.
Brad Bigelow of Neglected Books wrote about this novel: "... is perhaps the closest thing to a neglected masterpiece I've come across. I cannot recommend it too highly." It's a love story which combines the witty social commentary of an Oscar Wilde novel with the stylistic precision of Flaubert and the psychological realism of Edith Wharton or Henry James.
Author Info
ROBERT HILLYER (1895-1961) was a U.S. poet who published 15 books of poetry, 2 novels and 2 books of criticism. He volunteered with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in France during World War 1 and worked as a diplomatic courier during the 1919 Paris peace conference after the war. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1934. Born in New Jersey, he taught at Harvard University, Trinity College, Kenyon College and University of Delaware. He is known for his traditional approach to poetry, classical poetic forms, pastoral themes and a rejection of Modernist innovations like free verse. (Read a biographical sketch of Hillyer and Robert Hillyer wikipedia page.
ROBERT NAGLE is a fiction writer and literary critic living in Houston, Texas. He occasionally publishes fiction under various pseudonyms. His essay collection, NONCRAPPY THINGS FROM MY BLOG will be published in late 2023 (he has been writing for the idiotprogrammer blog for 21+ years). His monthly web column, Robert's Roundup of Indie Ebook Deals publicizes outstanding and affordable fiction being published today.
Brittany Betherum designed the cover art for the 2022 ebook edition. She is an illustrator and comic artist based in Missouri whose work is infused with inspiration from nature, fantasy stories, and myths. In 2020, she launched her fantasy-adventure comic, Falling Lands, available to read online at brittanybethurem.com.
Reviews
The result is a sustained performance with brilliant passages of lyric beauty such as the unforgettable scenes of Brittany. It is like a fine lyric in still another sense, and this is that when one is finished with it, one is not finished with it: it sets up reverberations as various as they are many, charming and troubling, faint and sharp. The story hangs on, and the reader is haunted by what has been said and even more by what was not....Because of its unusual combination of qualities of idyl and reality, of charm and doom, of the human desire to love and our still persisting capacity to thwart that desire in ourselves -- and these are the characteristics of all the great love stories of the world -- My Heart for Hostage will be read again and again. (Read more)
My Heart for Hostage is a nostalgic memoir of Paris, 1919, done in prose with all the effects of a lyric poem, all the haunting echoes and overtones, the distilled emotions, the evocative understatement. A poem could not have told this tale, but the tale, thus heightened by a poet, tells everything it wants to, and suggests more.
My Heart for Hostage is a slight story as novels go but it is a deeply touching one. All of the characters of the book come alive in Mr. Hillyer's finely textured prose. The two young lovers are drawn with a tender sympathy and compassion for youth; the old people with a lustier stroke, and, at times, with satiric subtlety.
Other Cool Stuff
- Hear Robert Hillyer recite poetry by himself and other people . Interestingly he recited more poems written by dead poets than written by himself.
- Another freebie ebook by Ohio Jack Matthews (1925-2013). Produced by Personville Press.
- Neglectedbooks.com is a blog of lost literary treasures run by Brad Bigelow. I always find amazing stuff here. Indeed, that's how Personville Press found out about this book and author!
- Check out the other Personville Press titles on the home page (or on the catalog listing). All for sale at Payhip, Amazon, Smashwords , Google , etc.
Contact Information
Robert Nagle, Editor of Personville Press, idiotprogrammer AT gmail.com