The Taverner Novels

First published in 1928 and 1932, these novels follow an ensemble of close friends in the beautiful Cornish countryside. The earlier Armed with Madness is the more mystical story: a small jade cup, possibly the Sanc-Grail, is involved in events that culminate in Scylla Taverner being tied to a wax statue of her lover and wounded with arrows by a temporarily insane friend. Death of Felicity Taverner, set at a later date and featuring most of the same characters, is more traditional in structure and plot. Felicity, a relative of Scylla's and saintly friend of all in their group, is dead. Her husband, the evil Jew Nick Kralin (an ugly stereotype in an otherwise intelligent novel), had a hand in her death. Now he plans to besmirch their sacred woods with a resort and publish a scandalizing version of Felicity's diaries. Scylla and her friends must stop him. This could be the outline of a melodrama, but Butts's work is richer and more complex, finally suggesting that evil cannot be fought with good but instead with more evil, or at least with amorality. Butts (1890-1937), a friend of numerous writers on the Paris scene including Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, now is due her share of recognition. (Jan.)