The Violet Apple and The Witch

Abstract

When he died, David Lindsay left two unpublished novels, entitled respectively The Violet Apple and The Witch . The former was written while Lindsay was still at the beginning of his literary career. Started in February 1924, it was apparently finished in July that same year. Hence, the writing was fairly rapid. The novel did not achieve its expected success, and, after several rejections by publishers, Lindsay returned to the typescript to make revisions. The new version gained no more success than the earlier one, however, and the author decided to put it away in a drawer. More than half a century would have to pass before this book became available through the welcome enterprise of Chicago Review Press in the United States, and of Sidgwick and Jackson in England. In the chronology of Lindsay's works, The Violet Apple lies after Sphinx , but before Devil's Tor . Moreover, the three books are similar in many respects, and these new publications will certainly allow many readers to discover an aspect of David Lindsay that is little known, to the extent that both Sphinx and Devil's Tor have long been unobtainable in England, and out of print. These publications, inspired by the renewed interest shown in Lindsay's books, also confirm an evolution in the writer towards a style which is his own, with a conception of plot and characters that is rather stiff. From Sphinx , Lindsay took up again the essential elements of the novel form, consisting of backgrounds, characters and situations.