The Passionate Clowns. The Story of a Modern Witch.

Bookseller Notes

Inscribed by the author on the title-page: 'For Christopher, from Holt Marvell, Sep 1930'.A 'story of quite exceptional originality and wit and malice' (blurb), in which Lady Hermione Flourish enlists the 'last of the Witches' (p. 9), Emmeline Turner, to assist her in various intrigues and entertainments - played, as the title suggests, for comic effect. In his Foreword, the author bemoans that people nowadays 'have no time to believe in Witches when Movies and Television, Airships and Radio already make so large a demand upon their credulity'. The world of popular entertainment was one with which the author - born in Birmingham and educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge - was familiar: he wrote the screenplay for 'Goodbye, Mr Chips', as well as providing the lyrics for popular songs including 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square' and 'These Foolish Things'. This is his second novel, following 'Husks in May' with the same publisher; he later collaborated on detective novels with Val Gielgud.