The Horse's Mouth

First published in 1944, this novel is narrated by Gulley Jimson, an aging English painter who scrounges studios, paints huge religious and mythic murals, and talks in a rush of Blake, scripture, and street slang. He has left his former wife and model Sara Monday, owes money, and hunts walls and patrons in London while the police and landlords close in. Flashbacks cover earlier portraits, a spell in jail, and the pictures he still wants to make. The book is a comic first-person novel of an artist at work, not a treatise on painting and not a life of William Blake.

Full red cloth binding decorated with a design in black by Hart. Grey endleaves. Grey slipcase.