THE FOUR MEN A FARRAGO SERIES

Much of the book consists of each of the four characters telling tales, or 'nothing but interminable stories' as one of them complains. In effect, the book is Belloc's homage to 'this Eden which is Sussex still.' Over the next few days, Belloc tells the tale of a group of four men who walk from this eastern outpost of Sussex to a western one at Harting on the border with Hampshire. The place? `The George' inn at Robertsbridge on Sussex's border with Kent. The novel is set over five successive days, starting on 29 October 1902, or the evening thereof to be precise.

THE FOUR MEN A FARRAGO SERIES

In his introduction, AN Wilson asserts that Belloc is not read today because we cannot bear to contemplate his wisdom, 'the wisdom of a man who says `I told you so' after the horse has bolted, and who is not entirely sorry to point out that the stable door, far from being better closed, was warped and torn from its hinges years ago.' Rather, Wilson proposes that `The Four Men' 'is like a series of happy snapshots taken at random before a cataclysm.'

Indeed, at the end of the journey described in this book, having left his companions to carry on the way, the main character 'recognised that I was (and I confessed) in that attitude of the mind wherein men admit mortality something had already passed from me.' Belloc wrote the book in 1911 when he was forty-one and perhaps starting to feel the intimations of mortality. The novel itself only takes up 162 pages. This is a review of the Oxford University Press's `Twentieth-Century Classics' edition of 1984 with a ten-page introduction by AN Wilson. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. The four characters, Myself, Grizzlebeard, the Poet and the Sailor, make this journey which is a part-real and part-fictional allegory of life.This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work.

The novel describes a 90-mile long journey on foot across the English county of Sussex, traveling from Robertsbridge to Harting in the autumn of 1902. They ask of life those ddp questions that are never answered they muse on death. As they tramp they talk, make verses, sing lusty songs, laugh at politics, tenderly recall first loves. 310 pages.ДЇour wanderers, finding themselves on the edge of their home country, resolve to tramp through its beloved borders. Olive green cloth with debossed geometric design and gilt title on front and spine. Name stamped on front paste-down and again across page 151. A couple light indents at rear fore edge.

One small mark and minimal fading to spine. Description: Book has light bumping to head and tail of spine.

The four men a farrago