Alms For Oblivion Volume II

A dazzling sequence of novels about the English misbehaving at home and abroad

Each of the novels in Alms for Oblivion is an elegant morality tale, beautifully composed, sparkling with appreciation of the sheer limitless variety of human wickedness

Turn to Raven and revel in his mischievious, malicious world

A ready made cult waiting to be discovered

His world is as original and surrealist as P. G. Wodehouse's, an alligator swamp in the homely back garden where all manner of nasty things hatch out

Confident, worldly-wise, insolently comic... a highly entertaining narrative style

Author Simon Raven was perhaps known as much for his controversial behaviour as for his writing. He grew up reading and studying the classics, translating them from Greek and Latin into English and vice-versa. He was expelled from Charterhouse School in 1945 for homosexual activities, having first been seduced at the age of nine by the games master (an experience he described as giving 'immediate and unalloyed pleasure") and went on to join the army. Following his National Service, Raven attended King's College, Cambridge to read English. Raven later returned to the army but was asked to resign rather than face a court-martial for 'conduct unbecoming.' It was at this point that he turned his focus to writing. The publisher Anthony Blond paid Raven to write and to move away from London to Deal, Kent. His works span a multitude of genres including fiction, drama, essays, memoirs and screenplays. Simon Raven died in May 2001, having written his own epitaph: "He shared his bottle - and, when still young and appetising, his bed."

'Each of the novels in Alms for Oblivion is an elegant morality tale, beautifully composed, sparkling with appreciation of the sheer limitless variety of human wickedness' TLS 
 
Simon Raven's sequence of colourful and funny novels about the English upper-class misbehaving continues against a backdrop of intrigue in Athens, radicalism in Cambridge, turmoil in India and movie-making in Corfu. Dazzlingly witty and thoroughly depraved, Raven's world is also a dark mirror to our times - one that is sure to make you blush, shriek, laugh out loud and always read on. 
 
Volume 2: The Judas Boy, Places Where they Sing, Sound the Retreat and Come Like Shadows 
 
'The Alms for Oblivion series steers its way its stylish course somewhere between Fleming and Waugh' Guardian

Alms For Oblivion Volume III

Majestic, scurrilous and scabrous... Raven's novels are joyous in their characterisation, wit and erudition....truffling in the fertile fields of soldiery, academia, business, politics and publishing. Raven's world - the upper middle class and upper class - is peopled by some of the vilest, funniest characters in English literature.

A truly powerful vision of evil and corruption. This is an achievement which can hardly be dismissed as mere entertainment

Exciting, sleazy, cynical and funny... Indulgently bizarre sex scenes rub shoulders with sharply observed human dilemmas and relentlessly exposed psychological and political manipulation

'Brisk, bawdy and reckless' Evening Standard 
 
'A freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh' Observer 
 
The Alms for Oblivion sequence - an extraordinary series of murders, suicides, affairs, fighting, fires and at least one explosion, blackmail, gambling, illness, madness, lots of parties and plenty of sex - draws to a close with two novels about death and retribution. But Simon Raven's achievement and the conflicted, colourful or uniquely vile characters he created are not easily forgotten after the last page is turned. 
 
Volume III includes Bring Forth the Body and The Survivors 
 
'There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as nothing compared to the characters in Simon Raven's majestic, scurrilous and scabrous Alms for Oblivion cycle' Guardian

Simon Raven

Cracking entertainment... Dangerously, deliciously addictive

Sparkling and fizzing... Raven has the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel

There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as nothing compared to the characters in Simon Raven's majestic, scurrilous and scabrous Alms for Oblivion cycle

Raven's gusto, the robustness of his style and his powerful, if quirky, intelligence all held me rapt

Raven's unique vision of our times - classes battling, corruption raging, ideas flashing - is not only valid but valuable. He spins webs of chance, intrigue and wit to ensnare civilised values and trap the truth. It's high time we gave this very curious genius a loud, warm welcome.

Each of the novels in Alms for Oblivion is an elegant morality tale, beautifully composed, sparkling with appreciation of the sheer limitless variety of human wickedness

[Raven is] a freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh

'Cracking entertainment... Dangerously, deliciously addictive' Daily Telegraph 
 
'[Raven is] a freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh' Observer 
 
Enter Alms for Oblivion, Simon Raven's dazzling cycle of ten novels, all telling separate stories but at the same time linked together by the characters they have in common: schoolboys and businessmen, writers and soldiers, prostitutes and patient wives, actresses and models. In the first four novels Raven's wayward band of upper-class anti-heroes lurch from debauched parties to rehearsals for nuclear war; from blackmail to murder; from marriage to adultery and back again. 
 
Volume 1: The Rich Pay Late, Friends in Low Places, The Sabre Squadron and Fielding Gray 
 
'There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as nothing compared to the characters in Simon Raven's majestic, scurrilous and scabrous Alms for Oblivion cycle' Guardian

Simon Raven

Praise for Alms For Oblivion Volume I

Cracking entertainment... Dangerously, deliciously addictive

Sparkling and fizzing... Raven has the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel

There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as not ...

Cracking entertainment... Dangerously, deliciously addictive

Sparkling and fizzing... Raven has the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel

There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as not ...

Cracking entertainment... Dangerously, deliciously addictive

Sparkling and fizzing... Raven has the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel

There are some people who consider the greatest cycle of twentieth-century novels to be Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. These people are wrong. Widmerpool and his joyless accomplices are as not ...

Books by Simon Raven

Series by Simon Raven

Alms for Oblivion

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