Mary Butts, Speed the Plough and Other Stories

Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)
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Chapman & Hall published Mary Butts’ first book

Speed the Plough and other Stories

in 1923. The volume included nine stories: “Speed the Plough”, “In Bayswater”, “The Saint”, “Bellerophon to Anteia”, “Angèle au Couvent”, “In the Street”, “The Golden Bough”, “In the South” and “Madonna of the Magnificat” (Blondel, 1997, 126). In its advertising blurb, Chapman & Hall declared thus: “It is not everyone’s book; no book that is worth anything is. It is modern both in its choice of subject and in its style. But it is a style that is as much a part of twentieth-century civilisation as the telephone and typewriter” (qtd. in Blondel, 1998, 125-6). It was not a book for the 1923

Observer

, which judged the “style of the stories” to be “awkward,…

3400 words

Citation: Radford, Andrew. "Speed the Plough and Other Stories". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39188, accessed 02 December 2024.]

39188 Speed the Plough and Other Stories 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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