Testimonies (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780393313161)

Delmore Schwartz, the most influential critic in postwar America, wrote of Patrick O'Brian's first novel Testimonies: "A triumph...drawn forward by lyric eloquence and the story's fascination, [the reader] discovers in the end that he has encountered in a new way the sphinx and the riddle of existence itself." Schwartz' imagination was fired by this sinister tale of love and death set in Wales, a timeless story with echoes of Thomas Hardy and Mary Webb.

Joseph Pugh, sick of Oxford and of teaching, decides to take some time off to live in a wild and beautiful Welsh farm valley. There he falls physically ill and is nursed back to health by Bronwen Vaughn, the wife of a neighboring farmer. Slowly, unwillingly, Bronwen and Pugh fall in love;' and while that word is never spoken between them, their story is as passionate and as tragic as that of Vronsky and Anna Karenina.


Author: Patrick O'Brien, Patrick O'Brian
ISBN-10: 0393313166
ISBN-13: 9780393313161
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 07/01/1995
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 8.33h x 5.40w x 0.59d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 08/27/1995 pg. 32
Publishers Weekly 06/19/1995