Ian Sansom - Death in Devon

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2015

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Copyright © Ian Sansom 2015

Cover image © Science & Society Picture Library / Getty Images

Ian Sansom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

Source ISBN: 9780007533169

Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007533152

Version: 2016-12-08

For Will

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

Isaiah 13:19–22

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1: Good to be Back

Chapter 2: Pranic Breathing

Chapter 3: Gateway to the Riviera

Chapter 4: The Very Boundaries of England

Chapter 5: A Sodality of Pedagogues

Chapter 6: Recommendations of Where to Visit

Chapter 7: To Record Every Detail

Chapter 8: The Science Mistress

Chapter 9: Everything in Hand and Under Control

Chapter 10: The Caves at Beer

Chapter 11: Scientia Potentia Est

Chapter 12: Out on the Lawn

Chapter 13: Basic Psychology

Chapter 14: Ruritania

Chapter 15: Lex Talionis

Chapter 16: The Ciderist

Chapter 17: Aloha!

Chapter 18: An Adept

Chapter 19: Sator Arepo

Chapter 20: An Artificial Paradise

Chapter 21: The Full Moon

Chapter 22: Back to the Light

Acknowledgements

Picture Credits

Keep Reading … Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Also by Ian Sansom

About the Author Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

About the Publisher

‘AH, SEFTON, MY FECKLESS FRIEND,’ said Morley. ‘Just the man. Now. Rousseau? What do you think?’

He was, inevitably, writing one of his – inevitable – articles. The interminable articles. The inevitable and interminable articles that made up effectively his one, vast inevitable and interminable article. The über -article. The article to end all articles. The grand accomplishment. The statement. What he would have called the magnum bonum . The Gesamtkuntswerk . ‘An essay a day keeps the bailiffs at bay,’ he would sometimes say, when I suggested he might want to reduce his output, and ‘The night cometh when no man can work, Sefton. Gospel of John, chapter nine, do you know it?’ I knew it, of course. But only because he spoke of it incessantly. Interminably. Inevitably. It was a kind of mantra. One of many. Swanton Morley was a man of many mantras – of catchphrases, proverbs, aphorisms, slang, street talk and endless Latin tags. He was a collector, to borrow the title of one of his most popular books, of Unconsidered Trifles (1934). ‘It takes as little to console us as it does to afflict us.’ ‘ Respice finem .’ And ‘May you never meet a mouse in your pantry with tears in his eyes.’ Morley’s endless work, his inexhaustible sayings, were, it seemed to me, a kind of amulet, a form of linguistic self-protection. Language was his great superstition – and his saviour.