by Simon Raven
What a pleasure to see at least one well earned honour in the New Year’s List: Doctor Jacquiz Helmut to be a Knight Bachelor for his services to antiquarian research. It will be remembered that it was Doctor Helmut (together with his ebullient associate from Crete, Mr Pandelios) who brought back to England last November the fabulous Rubies, the Roses of Picardie, and presented them to the FitzWilliam Museum in Cambridge. I’m told the French take rather a jaundiced view of this treasure’s departure to perfidious Albion, but since they themselves had succeeded in mislaying it for the last three centuries, and since it was not in any case discovered on French soil, there is very little they can say or do about it.
‘Pity about St Peter’s,’ said Ivor to Len about a month after Jacquiz had been knighted; ‘so soon after Canterbury and Milan.’
‘Horrible. Still, there’s lots of other things left. Let’s take a trip round all the Cathedrals in the Midi, as soon as term’s done.’
‘Oh, my dear, I’ve had rather a bad time on the share market lately. Nothing really disastrous, you understand, but no treats for a little.’
‘I’ll stand treat, Ive. I’m all right at the moment, very much all right. Besides, I shan’t be seeing so much of you after I sugar off next summer, so let’s make the most of our time now. And another thing; Balbo Blakeney might like to come along, now he’s back with us. He seems a bit preoccupied about Marigold’s baby, but she’s not due for months and months. He’d probably come with us if we also asked that old cricketing number from Jermyn Street.’
‘Jones, S, once of Glamorgan. I like Jones. Balbo says he’s due down again next weekend.’
‘Right,’ said Len. ‘All ways round, things are pretty good, Ive. So let’s have good times quickly, while they stay that way.’
Well, thought Lord Constable, now Helmut’s been knighted he’s really rather a credit to the place. That Ruby business was quite a coup: good publicity for the College, at all levels. Perhaps it’s just as well we’ve still got the blighter after all.
As for Balbo Blakeney, he seems a new man. Half a bottle of red burgundy every evening and the occasional brandy. One really can’t complain. An efficient Fellows’ Steward too – and there’s no doubt, it does keep them all quiet if their meals are to their liking. Food and drink never interested me; but if they keep all my Fellows calm and docile, I’ve nothing to say against them.
Extract from The Times, 30 July 1975:
BIRTHS…
HELMUT To Sir Jacquiz and Lady Helmut, a boy and girl: David and Rebecca.
Deal…Corfu…Venice…Cannes…Athens…Rome…Monte Carlo… Dieppe.
1976 to 1979
The Works of Simon Raven
Published by House of Stratus
First Born of Egypt Series
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels
1. Morning Star 1984
2. The Face of the Waters 1985
3. Before the Cock Crow 1986
4. New Seed for Old 1987
5. Blood of My Bone 1989
6. In the Image of God 1990
7. Troubadour 1992
Novels
1. Brother Cain 1959
2. Doctors Wear Scarlet 1960
3. Close of Play 1962
4. The Roses of Picardie 1979
5. An Inch of Fortune 1980
6. September Castle 1982
Stories/Collections
1. The Fortunes of Fingel 1976
2. Shadows on the Grass 1981
3. A Bird of Ill Omen 1989
Synopses of Simon Raven Titles
Published by House of Stratus
Before The Cock Crow
This is the third volume in the First Born of Egypt saga. The story opens with Lord Canteloupe’s strange toast to ‘absent friends’. His wife Baby has recently died and Canteloupe has been left her retarded son, Lord Sarum of Old Sarum. This child is not his, but has been conceived by Major Fielding Gray. In Italy there is an illegitimate child with a legitimate claim to the estate, whom Canteloupe wants silenced. The plot also sees young Marius Stern and his school friend, Tessa Malcolm, drawn into Milo Hedley’s schemes and into a dramatic finale orchestrated by Raisley Conyngham, Milo’s teacher.
Bird if Ill Omen
This hilarious instalment from Simon Raven’s entertaining autobiography takes the reader to the four corners of the globe. A lifetime spent travelling – as a soldier and as a civilian – brought Raven into contact with an amazing selection of characters: Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood, Morgan Grenfell, plus eccentrics such as Colonel Cuthbert Smith and ‘Parafit’ Paradore. Army life, travels, meetings, dinners and calamities take place in Kenya, Bombay, the Red Sea, Greece and California, among other exotic locations. Wherever he is, Raven entertains us in typical style.
Blood of My Bone
In this fifth volume of Simon Raven’s First Born of Egypt series, the death of the Provost of Lancaster College is a catalyst for a series of disgraceful doings in the continuing saga of the Canteloupes and their circle. Marius, under-age father of the new lady Canteloupe’s dutifully produced heir to the family estate, is warned against the malign influence of Raisley Conyngham. Classics teacher at Lancaster, Conyngham is well aware of the sway he has over Marius, who has already revealed himself a keen student of ‘the refinements of hell’. With fate intervening, the stage is set for another deliciously wicked instalment.
Brother Cain
Expelled from school, advised to leave university, and forced to resign from the army, Captain Jacinth Crewe has precious few options open to him. For a man in his position, an approach to join a sinister British Government security organisation, with a training centre in Rome, is not an opportunity to be turned down. In Rome, he learns fast how to be ruthless. There is one final mission to complete his training however – to kill an American diplomat and his wife. The setting for the final test is Venice, the occasion, a New Year’s Eve costume ball. As the clock nears midnight, the choice has to be made. And there is no turning back.
Close of Play
They are young and entirely unconventional. They have finished at Cambridge and done the tour of Europe. Now the three friends need to earn a living, so they have set up a unique organisation – a very exclusive London club with high membership fees, affordable only to a select few, and where the services on offer are richly varied and exotic. The menu is sex, in every imaginable form, guaranteed to satisfy any craving and fulfil any desire. Some of the world’s most prominent people make up the clientele.
Doctors Wear Scarlet
All his life, Richard Fountain has known only success. He is handsome, with an enviable record for school, army and university. A future career as a talented archaeologist seems assured. That is, until he travels to Greece and meets Chriseis. Chriseis is beautiful, mesmerising and mysterious – also evil. A spellbound Richard is lured into her dark world of vice, vampirism and ritual, high up in the Cretan mountains. When his rescuers finally reach him, he has changed beyond all recognition and is seemingly destined for a tragic end. The final act at a double funeral provides a tumultuous climax to a shocking story.
Face of the Waters
This is the second volume of Simon Raven’s First Born of Egypt series. Marius Stern, the wayward son of Gregory Stern, has survived earlier escapades and is safely back at prep school – assisted by his father’s generous contribution to the school’s new shooting range. Fielding Gray and Jeremy Morrison are returning home via Venice, where they encounter the friar, Piero, an ex-male whore and a figure from a shared but distant past. Back in England, at the Wiltshire family home, Lord Canteloupe is restless. He finds his calm disturbed by events: the arrival of Piero; Jeremy’s father’s threat to saddle his son with the responsibility of the family estate; and the dramatic resistance of Gregory Stern to attempted blackmail.
The Fortunes of Fingel
Life with Fingel is never predictable or dull, as we discover in this collection of
hilarious short stories about army life. Simon Raven, who was a regimental officer with the King’s Own Shropshire Light Infantry, writes with experience and humour. He reports on the adventures and misadventures, deeds and misdeeds, fortunes and misfortunes of the regimental rascal Fingel. We learn of Fingel’s progress from subaltern to insubstantive colonel. Although Fingel earns no glory, no awards, no commendations he has charm enough to con the brigadiers and colonels’ wives and to implicate his fellow soldiers in his schemes.
In the Image of God
The sixth in the First Born of Egypt series sees Raisley Conyngham, Classics teacher at Lancaster College exert a powerful influence over Marius Stern. His young pupil however is no defenceless victim. Marius has a ruthless streak and an ability to sidestep tests and traps that are laid for him. Which is just as well because everybody is after something from him…
An Inch of Fortune
‘Presuming even your capacity for borrowing money without qualm or security has by now lost much of its edge, it only remains that you should make some.’ The words of the Bursar ringing in his ears, Esme Sangrail Sa Foy is pushed into working in his summer holidays as a way of settling his college’s bills. Hired by the Honourable Mrs Sandra Fairweather, as holiday tutor to her adopted son Terence, Esme’s brief is unusual. Not expected to teach Terence anything, he is there to keep him out of trouble. Perhaps Terence’s psychiatrist Doctor MacTavish is a sign that nothing in the Fairweather household is what it seems. As the summer develops and Esme and Terence leave London for Suffolk and finally Biarritz, Esme makes his discoveries.
The Morning Star
This first volume in Simon Raven’s First Born of Egypt saga opens with the christening of the Marquess Canteloupe’s son and heir, Sarum of Old Sarum. The ceremony, attended by the godparents and the real father, Fielding Gray, is not without drama. The christening introduces a bizarre cast of eccentric characters and complicated relationships. In Morning Star we meet the brilliant but troublesome teenager Marius Stern. Marius’ increasingly outrageous behaviour has him constantly on the verge of expulsion from prep school. When his parents are kidnapped, apparently without reason, events take a turn for the worse.
New Seed for Old
The fourth in the First Born of Egypt series has Lord Canteloupe wanting a satisfactory heir so that his dynasty may continue. Unfortunately, Lord Canteloupe is impotent and his existing heir, little Tully Sarum, is not of sound mind. His wife Theodosia is prepared to do her duty when a suitable partner is found. Finding the man and the occasion proves somewhat tricky however, and it is not until Lord Canteloupe goes up to Lord’s for the first match of the season that progress is made.
The Roses of Picardie
A string of long-lost and cursed rubies gives the title to this highly imaginative tale by Simon Raven, author of the First Born of Egypt saga. Jacquiz Helmut and Balbo Blakeney, among other eccentric characters, pursue the jewels across four countries and eight centuries. Horror, intrigue and high comedy shape the story as it races towards an unforgettable climax.
September Castle
Basic human desires merge with the occult in a complex and erotic tale of a hunt across Europe. Ptolemaeos Tunne is determined to discover a hoard of valuable buried treasure. His only clue is a bizarre medieval legend about a possessed Greek princess with a bad reputation. What he doesn’t know is that his sixteen-year-old mistress Jo-Jo has unwittingly betrayed him to some very dangerous enemies.
Shadows On The Grass
Simon Raven’s wonderfully funny cricketing memoir covers a golden age from the early 1930s to the 1950s. With his unerring eye for observation, Raven hilariously recounts matches played at Charterhouse, Cambridge and cricket grounds as far afield as Bangalore, Kenya and Corfu. The autobiography is peopled with the author’s famous and infamous friends and partners in crime and littered with memorable anecdotes.
Troubadour
‘Where the twins had been a body lay in long, soft robes, and by its head a discarded lute. The head was uncovered and split into halves from the apex of the skull to the bridge of the nose…’ The question is whether this macabre scene is only theatre or whether it is it a sign of ill omen. In this, the concluding book in Simon Raven’s First Born of Egypt saga, the fate of Raisley Conyngham, Marius Stern and other characters is decided.
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