Francis King – författare

“A compact, intricately patterned story of unrequited erotic obsession, focused on the relationship between a closeted English novelist and a beautiful Italian philosopher . . . Among the novel’s daring ideas is its suggestion that closetedness and English taciturnity are part of a common condition, each an art of concealment.” —Charlie Tyson, Harper’s MagazineA witty, heartbreaking tale of unrequited love by “one of the finest and most remarkable English novelists of our time.” (The Scotsman)Antonio Valli, a gifted Italian philosopher in his thirties, has left his wife and children behind in Florence for a one-year research fellowship at a provincial English university. Handsome and charming, Antonio is irresistible to men and women both—and he knows it. One who falls under his spell is Dick Thompson, a successful middle-aged novelist from whom Antonio rents a room. For the first time in years, Dick finds himself desperately, passionately in love, but the games the manipulative Italian plays with him throw the older man’s life into chaos.Published only three years after the decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK, A Domestic Animal is Francis King’s most intimate and daringly autobiographical novel: a “wry, anguished study . . . of love and jealousy [that] is hard to forget” (Robert Baldick, The Daily Telegraph).

The secret writings of this mystical order reveal the keys to astral projection, clairvoyance, and other magical practices. The present-day revival of the practice of magic owes much to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the fin de siecle secret society that rediscovered many occult traditions dating back to antiquity. Prominent adepts of the Golden Dawn, whose members included W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley, preserved these traditions in manuscripts to be circulated among initiates of the Order. These documents, known as the Flying Rolls, reveal secrets of astral projection, clairvoyance, exorcism, alchemy, and other magical practices and occult philosophy. Many of the Flying Rolls escaped print and remained secret for some time, only slowly being tracked down over the years. Here, Francis King presents all the previously unpublished Flying Rolls. • Renowned occultist Francis King includes previously unpublished secret writings of the Golden Dawn in this important collection. • These are essential texts for practitioners of magical techniques, and of great interest to any student of Western occultism.

Ten vintage dramas on the theme of murder, written by internationally recognised authors and set across the globe'Murder is murder, anywhere in the world. The taking of life, the most terrible crime a human being can commit, is the same in any language, whether it springs from vengeance, greed, hate, love or whatever...'Conceived by BBC World Service producer Derek Hoddinott, the 1976 anthology series Murder International comprised half-hour adaptations of famous murder mysteries by world-renowned writers past and present, set in locations ranging from Corsica to St Petersburg, Malaysia, France and Spain. Collected here are ten of those thrilling dramas, each with a different theme, ranging from 'murder by the supernatural' to 'murder by duel'. Bringing them to life are a host of leading actors including Denis Quilley, Maureen O'Brien, George Cole, Christopher Cazenove, Joss Ackland, Michael Denison and George Baker.In The Hand by Guy Maupassant, an English aristocrat awaits his nemesis - alongside a gruesome trophy from his days in Africa.Mess, by Francis King, sees an adolescent boy taking extreme measures to escape his chaotic home life.The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin finds a high-stakes gambler risking his life and his sanity when he discovers the secret of how to win at cards.Face to face with the state assassin, a dissident writer defends his right to free speech in Friedrich Durrenmatt's Conversation at Night.Three men, maddened by greed for gold, turn on each other in The Treasure in the Forest by H.G. Wells.Serial wife-killer Clayton Allenby meets his match with bride number four in Julian Symons' The Accident.The youngest son of the Monkton family seems afflicted with hereditary madness in Wilkie Collins' Mad Monkton - but is he insane, or cursed?The Executioner, by Honore de Balzac, centres on a young Captain in the Napoleonic wars, who is ordered to carry out a terrible crime.Somerset Maugham's Footprints in the Jungle concerns a charming married couple with a shocking skeleton in their closet.In Stacy Aumonier's The Fall, when a petty crook turns murderer, Inspector Tolozan uses the man's greatest fear to extract a confession...First broadcast BBC Radio, 4 21 July - 29 September 1976With warm thanks to Keith Wickham and the Radio CircleNB: Some of the language on these vintage recordings reflects the era in which it was first broadcast, and due to the age of the source material, the sound quality may varyConversation at Night (c) 1986 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich(c) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Two Years of Wandering is a vivid picture of life in Soviet Russia during the civil war, through the eyes of Lenin's longstanding political rival, the leading Menshevik Fedor Dan. It is the first translation into any language of Dan's memoir, written and published in Russian in 1922. Dan had been an active revolutionary and Marxist since the 1890s, and one of the Soviet leaders in 1917, but by 1920, when this memoir begins, he and his party were leading a precarious, semi-legal existence. From then until his expulsion from Soviet Russia in 1922, Dan's life as a mobilised state employee and political oppositionist took him from Moscow to the Urals, the Russo-Polish front, Soviet congresses in Moscow and Petrograd - and to prison. Now available for the first time in English, Francis King's translation of Dan's memoir sheds new light on life in the 'war communist' siege economy in the capitals and the provinces, on the mentalities of the supporters and critics of Lenin's government, and on the political logic driving the development of the Soviet one-party system and its criminalisation of any dissent.The volume is essential reading for both academics and general readers interested in the crucial political and social shifts that took place in Soviet Russia during this period of great change.

Sexuality, Magic & Perversion by Francis King is a controversial, revelatory, highly recommended volume of original research that investigates sexuality in religions and traditions all over the globe, from fertility cults and tantricism to Islamic mysticism and Crowleyan sex magick. A tantalizing study of the mystical aspect of sex, heavily researched.