Joining Andy and John on this episode of Backlisted is Dickon Edwards, a London-based writer, dandy, occasional DJ, and erstwhile musician. In the 1990s and 2000s he toured and released albums with the bands Orlando and Fosca. He has kept an online diary, The Diary at the Centre of the Earth, since 1997: in 2017 it was recognised as the longest running of its kind by the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King’s College London. He is currently balancing freelance arts journalism with researching for a PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. His PhD topic is 'Ronald Firbank and the Legacy of Camp Modernism' The book that Dickon is here to talk about Hemlock and After  the first novel by Angus Wilson, first published by Secker & Warburg in 1952. The discussion also considers the short but beautiful Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger and a Jane Austen novel (Northanger Abbey) that Andy can finally get on with.

Books mentioned:

Angus Wilson - Hemlock and After; The Wrong Set; Anglo-Saxon Attitudes; Such Darling Dodos; Late Call; No Laughing Matter
Nathalie Léger - Suite for Barbara Loden
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters
Susan Sontag - Notes on Camp

Other links:

The Diary at the Centre of the Earth
Les Fugitives
Wanda by Barbara Loden
Angus Wilson, Meridian, BBC World Service interview, 1983
Angus Wilson: A Celebration, Royal Society of Literature (Nov, 2013)
An interview with Angus Wilson (The Iowa Review 1972)
Angus Wilson interviewed inThe Paris Review, 1957
Gay is the Word bookshop