On the way to Perignan

About this book

I have a first edition, hand-dedicated by the author to the well-known historian Dr Francis Trevelyan Miller. Jennings Wise describes the book as `my only offense at attempted novel-writing'. It is not quite an offense, but is an interesting if convoluted story of a young man growing up in the post-civil war confusion of race relations, at prep-school in New England, college at Harvard,where he encounters a wise librarian who mentors him through what becomes a transforming learning experience. His subsequent exposure to vestigial aristocratic living in the eastern US and his own cerebral clashes with the moral philosophies of reconstruction are what the book is about. He goes to Europe, dreaming of being a writer, and in Paris falls in love with his landlady's daughter who serendipitously is `sent' weekly to his room to collect the rent. As the first world war breaks out, he romantically decides to join the Foreign Legion. As a sort of medic, he stumbles completely by surprise one day across the corpse of an old friend killed in combat. This experience disorients him, and after being wounded, he wanders on light duty, ending up at Chateau Perignan, the ancient seat of a noble family, but the estate of which was currently in court custody. The custodian of course is a doctor, with a beautiful daughter, and the chateau has a fabulous library, and everything comes together at the end, philosophy, healing, and young love. The book is a unique window on the US and Europe in the early 1900s, and shows how the literati viewed their own world at that time.