Djuna Barnes – illustratör

A "striking lesbian manifesto and a deft parody" by the acclaimed author of Nightwood. (—Library Journal)Nearly 100 years after its original 1928 publication sent shockwaves through the literary scene, Ladies Almanack reigns as a brilliant modernist composition and one of the most audacious lesbian texts of the 20th century. At once a scathing social satire and a love letter to the wealthy expatriates of Paris high society, the book delights in its cast of characters, who are clear analogues to Barnes’ lesbian literary contemporaries—and the book’s first readers.Arranged by month and written in a pastiche of Restoration literature, Ladies Almanack records the life and lovers of Dame Evangeline Musset, a pseudonymous stand-in for Natalie Clifford Barney. Accompanied for the first time by Barnes’ original Elizabethan-style woodcut illustrations, this new edition also features a sharp, impassioned introduction by Sarah Schulman reflecting on the ways in which lesbian lives have changed—and haven’t—since the 1920s. After decades out of print, Dalkey Archive is proud to revive the Ladies Almanack for contemporary readers: a classic that delivers all the salacious drama of The L Word with the literary wit and wordplay of Shakespeare.

From the author of Nightwood, Djuna Barnes has written a book that is all that she was, and must still be vulgar, beautiful, defiant, witty, poetic, and a little mad.Told as through a kaleidoscope, the chronicle of the Ryder family is a bawdy tale of eccentricity and anarchy; through sparkling detours and pastiche, cult author Djuna Barnes spins an audacious, intricate story of sexuality, power, and praxis.Ryder, like its namesake, Wendell Ryder, is many things—lyric, prose, fable, illustration; protagonist, bastard, bohemian, polygamist. Born in the 1800s to infamous nonconformist Sophia Grieve Ryder, Wendell’s search for identity takes him from Connecticut to England to multifarious digressions on morality, tradition, and gender. Censored upon its first release in 1928, Ryder’s portrayal of sexuality remains revolutionary despite the passing of time and the expurgations in the text, preserved by Barnes in protest of the war “blindly raged against the written word.” The weight of Wendell’s story endures despite this censorship, as his drive to assume the masculine roles of patriarch and protector comes at the sacrifice of the women around him.A vanguard modernist, Djuna Barnes has been called the patron literary saint of Bohemia, and her second novel, Ryder, evinces her cutting wit and originality. The nonlinear structure and polyphonic narration pull the reader into Barnes’ harlequin world like a riptide, echoing the melodic cascade of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the avant-garde feminism of Dorothy Richardson. The novel is a rhapsodic saga that could have come only from Barnes’ pen—and politics—as impactful today upon at its first pressing, a document of sexual revolution and censorship.

From the author of Nightwood, Djuna Barnes has written a book that is all that she was, and must still be vulgar, beautiful, defiant, witty, poetic, and a little mad.

Told as through a kaleidoscope, the chronicle of the Ryder family is a bawdy tale of eccentricity and anarchy; through sparkling detours and pastiche, cult author Djuna Barnes spins an audacious, intricate story of sexuality, power, and praxis.

Ryder, like its namesake, Wendell Ryder, is many things—lyric, prose, fable, illustration; protagonist, bastard, bohemian, polygamist. Born in the 1800s to infamous nonconformist Sophia Grieve Ryder, Wendell’s search for identity takes him from Connecticut to England to multifarious digressions on morality, tradition, and gender. Censored upon its first release in 1928, Ryder’s portrayal of sexuality remains revolutionary despite the passing of time and the expurgations in the text, preserved by Barnes in protest of the war “blindly raged against the written word.” The weight of Wendell’s story endures despite this censorship, as his drive to assume the masculine roles of patriarch and protector comes at the sacrifice of the women around him.

A vanguard modernist, Djuna Barnes has been called the patron literary saint of Bohemia, and her second novel, Ryder, evinces her cutting wit and originality. The nonlinear structure and polyphonic narration pull the reader into Barnes’ harlequin world like a riptide, echoing the melodic cascade of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the avant-garde feminism of Dorothy Richardson. The novel is a rhapsodic saga that could have come only from Barnes’ pen—and politics—as impactful today upon at its first pressing, a document of sexual revolution and censorship.