Before Kavan became Kavan
KAVAN, Anna. A Stranger Still. London: Peter Owen. 1995.
8vo. Original brown cloth, silver lettering to spine, with illustrated orange and white dust wrapper, unclipped; pp. [x], 302; very light bumping to head of spine, otherwise a fine copy.
First Peter Owen hardcover edition of this early novel, originally published in 1935 under Kavan’s married name, Helen Ferguson.
Initially publishing under her first married name, Helen Ferguson, Anna Kavan adopted her now-famous pseudonym in 1939 – a change that marked a profound personal and artistic transformation. The name “Anna Kavan” was taken from a character in her 1930 novel Let Me Alone and appears also in the present work. The writer embraced it not only as a pen name but as her legal identity, effectively reinventing both her life and her literary voice.
Set in the 1930s across bohemian London, Paris, and the south of France, A Stranger Still traces the decline of a wealthy family as they navigate personal and financial turmoil. For readers familiar with the author’s elusive and turbulent life, the novel resonates with echoes of Kavan’s own childhood trauma and psychological unrest.
As Brian Aldiss writes on the blurb: “Kavan’s prose is like pollen, frail yet enduring. She is De Quincey’s heir, Kafka’s sister, and a true writer”.
#2122414