Death in Devon. Ian Sansom

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       Copyright

      4th Estate

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF

       www.4thestate.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2015

      1

      Copyright © Ian Sansom 2015

      Cover image © Science & Society Picture Library / Getty Images

      Ian Sansom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

      Source ISBN: 9780007533169

      Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007533152

      Version: 2016-12-08

       Dedication

       For Will

       Epigraph

      And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

      Isaiah 13:19–22

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      Chapter 1: Good to be Back

      Chapter 2: Pranic Breathing

Chapter 3: Gateway to the Riviera

Chapter 4: The Very Boundaries of England

Chapter 5: A Sodality of Pedagogues

Chapter 6: Recommendations of Where to Visit

       Chapter 7: To Record Every Detail

       Chapter 8: The Science Mistress

       Chapter 9: Everything in Hand and Under Control

       Chapter 10: The Caves at Beer

       Chapter 11: Scientia Potentia Est

       Chapter 12: Out on the Lawn

       Chapter 13: Basic Psychology

       Chapter 14: Ruritania

       Chapter 15: Lex Talionis

       Chapter 16: The Ciderist

       Chapter 17: Aloha!

       Chapter 18: An Adept

       Chapter 19: Sator Arepo

       Chapter 20: An Artificial Paradise

       Chapter 21: The Full Moon

       Chapter 22: Back to the Light

       Acknowledgements

       Picture Credits

       Keep Reading …

       Also by Ian Sansom

       About the Author

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER 1

       GOOD TO BE BACK

      ‘AH, SEFTON, MY FECKLESS FRIEND,’ said Morley. ‘Just the man. Now. Rousseau? What do you think?’

      He was, inevitably, writing one of his – inevitable – articles. The interminable articles. The inevitable and interminable articles that made up effectively his one, vast inevitable and interminable article. The über-article. The article to end all articles. The grand accomplishment. The statement. What he would have called the magnum bonum. The Gesamtkuntswerk. ‘An essay a day keeps the bailiffs at bay,’ he would sometimes say, when I suggested he might want to reduce his output, and ‘The night cometh when no man can work, Sefton. Gospel of John, chapter nine, do you know it?’ I knew it, of course. But only because he spoke of it incessantly. Interminably. Inevitably. It was a kind of mantra. One of many. Swanton Morley was a man of many mantras – of catchphrases, proverbs, СКАЧАТЬ