Twopence Coloured: Patrick Hamilton

Synopsis:

‘West Kensington - grey area of rot, and caretaking, and cat-slinking basements. West Kensington - drab asylum for the driven and cast-off genteel!’

Patrick Hamilton was acutely conscious that his third novel (first published in 1928) was longer and ‘much grimmer’ than his previous and well-received productions. Twopence Coloured is the story of 19-year-old Jackie Mortimer, who leaves Hove in search of a life on the London stage, only to become entangled in ‘provincial theatre’ and complex affairs of the heart with two brothers, Richard and Charles Gissing. The novel, unavailable for many years, is a gimlet-eyed portrait of the theatrical vocation, and fully exhibits Hamilton’s celebrated gift for conjuring London - the ‘vast, thronged, unknown, hooting, electric-lit, dark-rumbling metropolis.’

Tags:

Categorised as:
Fiction
Sub-categories:
General Fiction
Places:
London
Genres & Themes:
British Theatre; Cities; Faber Finds; Family Saga
Twopence Coloured book cover

Selected edition:
Paperback
ISBN:
9780571280162
Published:
21.07.2011
No of pages:
368
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