Gerald Basil Edwards

Gerald Basil Edwards (G. B. Edwards) (July 8, 1899 – December 29, 1976) was a British author.

Biography

Edwards was born in Vale, Guernsey, the son of Thomas Edwards, a quarry owner, by his wife Harriet (née Mauger). He served in the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry, then spent four years reading English at the University of Bristol (1919–1923),[1] from which he apparently did not graduate; following this, he entered the literary world of London.[2]

Edwards is known for The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, which was published posthumously in 1981. Edwards had worked on his great novel for many years but only completed it towards the end of his life, presenting the typescript to his friend Edward Chaney[3] in August 1974,[4] rather in the manner that the fictional Ebenezer bequeaths his 'Book' to Neville Falla in the novel. The typescript was rejected by all the publishers it was shown to and only after Edwards' death was it taken up by Hamish Hamilton who arranged for John Fowles to write an introduction.[5] It was widely and very favourably reviewed,[6] among others by William Golding and Guy Davenport. Harold Bloom included it in his Western Canon. Penguin produced a paperback and it was published in America and in French translation. It has since been published in Italian by Elliot Edizioni. It is currently in print in Britain and America with New York Review of Books in their Classics series.

In the late 1920s and '30s Edwards had been regarded as a writer and intellectual of great promise, one who might fill the shoes of D. H. Lawrence, whose biography Cape commissioned him to write. He occasionally contributed to Middleton Murry's Adelphi magazine but never completed his larger projects. Eventually his friends Murry, John Stewart Collis and Stephen Potter gave up their hopes in him. By 1933 he had abandoned his wife and children[7] and he did not re-establish contact with his daughter until decades later. He became an itinerant teacher of drama and, latterly, a minor civil servant and something of a recluse. Towards the end of his life, he became a lodger in a house near Weymouth where he was 'discovered' by art student Edward Chaney.[8] The latter encouraged him to complete his novel and eventually got it published.

Edwards died in Weymouth, Dorset. In September 2008 Chaney and Jane Mosse unveiled Guernsey's first blue plaque on Edwards's father's house.[9]

A biography of G. B. Edwards by his friend Chaney was published in September 2015 by Blue Ormer Publishing.[10]

See also

References
  • Chaney, Edward, Genius Friend: G. B. Edwards and The Book of Ebenezer Le Page (Blue Ormer Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-0-9928791-0-5).
  • Chaney, Edward, GB Edwards and Ebenezer Le Page, Review of the Guernsey Society, Parts 1–3, 1994–5.

Notes
  1. Guernsey People, L. James Marr, Phillimore, 1984, pg 49
  2. "The Arran Voice – Extraordinary Ebenezer follow-up". 27 May 2009. Archived from the original on 27 May 2009. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  3. Edward Chaney is a Professor of Fine and Decorative Arts. See his web page Archived 2006-02-15 at the Wayback Machine at the Southampton Solent University. Retrieved 2001-09-22
  4. G B Edwards and The Book of Ebenezer le Page by Edward Chaney, in Arts and Humanities Research Council, University of Southampton. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
  5. Foreword to The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, by John Fowles, Hamish Hamilton, 1981
  6. The Book of Ebenezer Le Page Reading Group Guide, New York Review of Books.
  7. John Fowles, "Ebenezer Le Page" (1981), in Wormholes (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), p. 173.
  8. Extraordinary Ebenezer follow-up by Edward Chaney, in The Arran voice, 30 October 2008.
  9. Blue Plaque could be first of many to celebrate local heroes, Guernsey Press, 29 September 2008
  10. Edward Chaney, Genius Friend: G. B. Edwards and The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, (Blue Ormer Publishing, 2015)
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