&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:The_solitudes.jpg) 1988 edition of The Solitudes by VGSF, bearing the original title | |
| Author | John Crowley |
|---|---|
| Original title | Ægypt |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ægypt |
| Subject | History, Hermeticism, English Renaissance |
| Genre | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
Publication date | April 1987 (1st edition) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 390 (Hardcover edition) |
| Followed by | Love & Sleep |
The Solitudes (originally titled Ægypt contrary to the author's wishes[1]) is a 1987 fantasy novel by John Crowley. It is Crowley's fifth published novel and the first novel in the Ægypt tetralogy. Titled after Luis de Góngora's Las Soledades (English: "The Solitudes"), the novel follows Pierce Moffett, a college history professor in his retreat from ordinary, academic life to pastoral life of Faraway Hills. While in the area, Pierce comes up with a plan to write a book about Hermeticism, in the process finding several parallels with his own project and that of the nearly-forgotten local novelist Fellowes Kraft.
The novel takes place in two time periods and features three main protagonists; that of Pierce's in the late twentieth century, and that of John Dee, Edward Kelley and Giordano Bruno as from the historical novels of Kraft in the Renaissance. The difference is marked stylistically by dashes indicating dialogue for events that happened in the Renaissance and events in the twentieth century marked by dialogue in quotation marks.
The novel was nominated for the 1988 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the 1988 World Fantasy Award.[2]
- ^ Park, Ed. "A Word-Magus Gets His Due". LA Times. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
- ^ "1988 Award Winners and Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 25 March 2012.