This won the Whitbread Award for Fiction back in 1989 and certainly deserves this re-issue to coincide with the publication of Clarke’s new novel The Water Theatre. Characters in the present are trying to unravel what happened to the inhabitants of their house a hundred years before, with alchemy taking a central theme in the novel. Gripping, complex and creative.
Soon after moving to the secluded Norfolk village of Munding, Alex Darken has a disturbing encounter with the ageing poet Edward Nesbit and his young lover Laura. They are obsessively researching the lives of Sir Henry Agnew and his daughter Louisa who lived in Munding in the nineteenth century and were deeply engaged in alchemical practices. By recovering the lost secret of the hermetic mysteries, Edward and Laura hope to find an alternative to the destructive materialism of the post-industrial world. Once drawn into their fervent quest for knowledge, Alex finds himself entangled in a passionate and intense intrigue that reaches across two centuries. A beautifully written, ambitious and captivating novel, which takes a profound look at issues of nature, human existence and forgotten knowledge, The Chymical Wedding, which won the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, is already considered a classic for its stylistic prowess and philosophical resonances.
Lindsay Clarke is the author of seven novels, including The Chymical Wedding, which won the Whitbread Award for Fiction in 1989. His novel, Sunday Whiteman, based on the time he spent as a teacher in the rainforest of West Africa, was shortlisted for the David Higham First Novel Award. He is also the author of five radio plays, which were broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and a pamphlet of verse, Stoker. His works have been translated into many languages.
