The Unquiet Grave (book)

This article is about the book by Cyril Connolly. For the anthology edited by August Derleth, see The Unquiet Grave (anthology).
First edition
(publ. Curwen Press for Horizon)

The Unquiet Grave is a literary work by Cyril Connolly written in 1944 under the pseudonym Palinurus. It comprises a collection of aphorisms, quotes, nostalgic musings and mental explorations.Together with Enemies of Promise (1938), it is one of the two books for which the author is mainly remembered.[1]

Palinurus was the pilot of Aeneas's ship in Virgil's Aeneid, who fell overboard as an act of atonement to the angry gods, and whose spirit wandered in the underworld. Connolly uses the theme to explore his feelings and review his situation as he approaches the age of forty presenting a very pessimistic and self-deprecating account. Into this he brings quotes from some of his favourite authors: Pascal, De Quincey, Chamfort and Flaubert as well as snatches from the Buddha, Chinese philosophy and Freud.

The book's title is taken from an English folk song of the same name:

The twelvemonth and a day being up,
The dead began to speak:
'Oh who sits weeping on my grave,
And will not let me sleep?'[2]

The book is in four parts entitled Ecce Gubernator ("Here is the pilot"), Te Palinure Petens ("Looking for you, Palinurus"), La Clé des Chants ("The key of songs") and Who was Palinurus. The first two contain similar sets of musing, while the third contains more recollections with veiled references to Connolly's life in France. The last gives an account of Palinurus's history.

  1. ^ Andrews, Robert & Hughes, Kate (2000). The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations. London: Penguin. p. 86. ISBN 0140293078 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ "The Unquiet Grave" from Child's Collected Ballads