All the Devils Are Here [Paperback]

David Seabrook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2002

David Seabrook takes the reader on a deranged exploration of the coast towns of Thanet and the Medway. He fuses his observation of these depressing landscapes, city centres full of unemployed young men, asylum seekers and dodgy characters, with literary and historical associations that seem through his eyes more like bad dreams than heritage advertisements for the local tourist board. He sees the desperate jollity of Margate and Westgate, wher T.S. Eliot stayed after the Great War, as a key element in the making of "The Waste Land". His Rochester and Chatham crawl with ghosts of Dickens, the parricide of Richard Dadd and the real mystery of Edwin Drood. In Broadstairs, site of John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps", he uncovers a weird network involving Lord Curzon, Buchan, William Joyce, a famous Nazi con-man and Audrey Hepburn's father. And in Deal he stumbles on a network that touches on the murder of boxer Freddie Mills and the self-destruction of Carry On star Charles Hawtrey while uncovering the true, sordid story behind Robin Maugham's novel "The Servant".

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With its explorations of the dark underbellies of the English towns of East Kent, Seabrook's work could have been just a guilty pleasure, but he has instead written a compelling and fascinating personal narrative on the level of literature. Seen through his eyes, these towns, filled with the chronically unemployed, drunks, and terrible rainy weather, are the rich stuff of the literarily bizarre. T.S. Eliot lived in these towns and later gave forth The Waste Land. John Buchan walked down a hard, stone staircase and was inspired to write his novel The Thirty-Nine Steps. We also meet a coterie of local legends: parricide Richard Dadd, noted Nazi confidence man Lord Curzon, and boxer Freddie Mills, who was brutally murdered. This English seacoast is not the milieu of famous summer holidays but of denizens of Dickens's slums. This first book by British writer Seabrook is recommended for public libraries. Glenn Masuchika, Rockwell Collins Information Ctr., Cedar Rapids, IA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

David Seabrook lives in Canterbury. He studies English and American Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and has been a TEFL teacher. All the Devils are Here required extensive research on a previously untouched subject and is his first book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: Granta Books (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862074836
• ISBN-13: 978-1862074835
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #470,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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