Return, Belphegor!

Bookseller Notes

A scarce satirical fantasy novel, listed by Bleiler and incorporating Grail elements, in which Satan dispatches the demon Belphegor to overturn the rationalism pervading human society by restoring faith under his incarnation as the son of the Rev. Bevir. As a portrait of the intellectual climate of its time, it is imaginative and amusing, its targets within academe and the cloth largely protected by onomastic absurdism though the arch-satirist Wyndham Lewis is name-checked on p. 62 as the 'grand old veteran' of London's 'brilliant arty set', and Edith Sitwell is cited at the beginning of Satan's Introduction. Vines was associated with Sitwell earlier in his career, as a contributor to the Wheels anthologies, though how pointed the dark lord's intimacy with his erstwhile mentor's work is meant to be is hard to determine.