The Wooden Shepherdess (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Richard Hughes (Author, Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: February 28, 2000

The Wooden Shepherdess is the sequel to The Fox in the Attic, and the second volume of Richard Hughes's monumental historical fiction, "The Human Predicament." It opens with Hughes's hero Augustine in prohibition era America, where he is a bemused onlooker and an increasingly fascinated participant in a country intoxicated with sex, violence, and booze. In brilliant cinematic style, the book then moves to Germany, where the Nazi Party is gradually gaining in power; to the slums, mining towns, parliamentary back rooms, and great houses of a Britain teetering on the verge of class war; and to the wilds of the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The novel ends with a terrifying account of the Night of the Long Knives, as Hitler ruthlessly secures his hold upon Germany.

This new edition of the The Wooden Shepherdess concludes with the twelve chapters that Hughes completed of the planned third volume of "The Human Predicament," here published for the first time in America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The two volumes we already have of “The Human Predicament” [The Fox in the Attic, The Wooden Sheperdess] are in themselves enough to make the novel a major and unique contribution to the century’s fiction.
— Walter Allen

About the Author

Richard Hughes (1900-1976) was born in Surrey, England, but his ancestors came from Wales and he considered himself a Welshman. After an early childhood marked by the deaths of two older siblings and his father (his mother then went to work as a magazine journalist), Hughes attended boarding school and, with every expectation of being sent to fight in the First World War, enrolled in the military. Armistice was declared, however, before he could see active service, and Hughes was free to go to Oxford, where he became a star on the university literary scene, with a book of poems in print and a play produced in the West End by the time he graduated in 1922. Hughes’s first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, came out in 1928 and was a best seller in the United Kingdom and America. In Hazard followed ten years later. Hughes also wrote stories for children and radio plays, but his final major undertaking was the “The Human Predicament”, an ambitious amalgamation of fact and fiction that would track the German and English branches of a single family into the disaster of the Second World War while offering a dramatic depiction of Hitler’s rise to power. The work was planned as a trilogy, but remained incomplete at the time of Hughes’s death. The first volume, The Fox in the Attic, appeared in 1960, to great critical acclaim; volume two, The Wooden Shepherdess, was published in 1973. All of Hughes’s completed novels are available fromNYRB Classics.

Hilary Mantel is the author of many novels, including Beyond Black and Wolf Hall.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (February 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940322307
• ISBN-13: 978-0940322301
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #851,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Only for Hughes Fans, October 3, 2009

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This review is from: The Wooden Shepherdess (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

I have all of his books and have read them all several times. When this edition of the Wooden Shepherdess was published, I bought it -- even though I had an earlier edition -- because of the promise of being able to read a part of the unfinished third volume of the series. Although I have even read that part several times, it's always a disappointment. It is just a rough sketch of what was to be a finished work.