 Cover of the 2006 edition | |
| Author | Djuna Barnes |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Sigrid Rothe |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Modernist Lesbian literature |
| Publisher | Harcourt Trade Publishers |
Publication date | 1936 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 180 |
| ISBN | 978-0-8112-1671-5 (New Directions Publishing Paperback Reprint) |
| OCLC | 70107094 |
| 813/.52 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3503.A614 N5 2006 |
| Preceded by | Ladies Almanack |
| Followed by | The Antiphon |
Nightwood is a 1936 novel by American author Djuna Barnes that was first published by publishing house Faber and Faber. It is one of the early prominent novels to portray explicit homosexuality between women, and as such can be considered lesbian literature.[1][2]
It is also notable for its intense, gothic prose style.[2] The novel employs modernist techniques such as its unusual form or narrative and can be considered metafiction,[3] and it was praised by other modernist authors including T. S. Eliot, who edited the novel, helped publish it, and wrote an introduction included in the 1937 edition published by Harcourt, Brace. As a roman à clef, the novel features a thinly veiled portrait of Barnes in the character of Nora Flood, whereas Nora's lover Robin Vote is a composite of Thelma Wood and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Jenny Petherbridge is Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalf, and Felix Volkbein is derived from Frederick Philip Grove.[4][5][6]
- ^ Austen, p. 82
- ^ a b Young, p. 153.
- ^ Fama, Katharine A. (2014). "Melancholic Remedies: Djuna Barnes's Nightwood as Narrative Theory". Journal of Modern Literature. 37 (2). Berlin: 39. doi:10.2979/jmodelite.37.2.39. S2CID 170752087.
- ^ Gammel, p. 357.
- ^ Nair, S. (2011-12-06). Secrecy and Sapphic Modernism: Reading Romans à Clef Between the Wars. Springer. ISBN 978-0-230-35618-4.
- ^ DeVore, Lynn (1983). "The Backgrounds of "Nightwood": Robin, Felix, and Nora". Journal of Modern Literature. 10 (1): 71–90. ISSN 0022-281X. JSTOR 3831198.