MAURICE ROWDON; PUBLICATIONS
NOVELS
Hellebore the Clown (Chatto and Windus)
OfcSins and Winter (Chatto and Windus)
Perimeter West (Heinemann)
Afterwards (Barrie Books)
TRAVEL
Italian Sketches (Gollancz)
A Roman Street (Gollanez)
Companion Guide to Umbria (Collins)
HISTORY
The Fall of Venice (Weidenfeld)
The Spanish Terror (Constable)
BIOGRAPHY
Lorenzo the Magnificent (Weidenfeld)
Leonardo da Vinci (Weidenfeld)
PUBLICATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
The Silver Age of Venice (Praeger)
Lorenzo the Magnificent (Regnery)
The Spanish Terror (St Martin's Press)


MANUSCRIPTS AND SYNOPSES AT PRESENT ON OFFER
SOPHIA (a novel)
This is a dtsguised Indian cult book about a hermaphr-
odite called Sophia and her affairs with other women.
It plays between New York and an island in the southern
Mediterranean. All the characters speak in the first
person, and have to be identified by the reader solely
through their style of speech. To young people familiar
with words like kundalini, and accustomed to Indian
disciplines it comes easy. But others don't know where
they are.
It has been to Chatto, Cape (*mostly impossible to
understand, and dull when possible'---rom Maschler),
Constable ('a commendable try, but no quarter is given
to the
Bodley Head ('readers should be pro-
tected pesdenttntes against
kind of book'), Hutchinson and
Gollanoz.
In the States Rosemary Macomber of Georges Borchardt
said she could hardly try to place a book she couldn't
make head or tail of, but did try it at David Bolt's
request on Tony Godwin who turned it down.
A SONG OF THE END OF THE WORLD (a poem)
A poem with notes, seen
Chatto ('a portentous poem
of 373 lines accompanied 1% 14 pages of pedantic explic-
atory notes. Certainly
Secger and Warbur ('a
most intriguing sequence but
we are booked
Erotaae
poetry until 1976"), Bodley Head and Faber and Faber.
I suggest Allen and Unwin where I believe the poetry
is in the hands of a pleasant bird.
W.H.Allen?
Newsweek is conducting a nationwide poll in the States,
Do you think the end of the world is coming? Accord-
ing to a friend who is asking the question in Penna.
the answer is usually yes.
THE INDIAN CRUCIFIXION (synopsis)
A very detailed OUTLINE in two parts, with excerpts,
made on the basis of 2-300 pages of notes accumulated
over the last three years. Describes Christian civil-


isation as the first stage of a 'debarbarianising
operation' which has many thousands of years to run
yet before the question of a valid civilisation is
even mooted. Calls itself 'a handbook for barbarians,
with which they can recognise themselves'.
Arguments
backed by much curious historical information.
At present with Geoffrey Strachan (rhyme with dawn)
at Eyre, Methuen, I asked David Bolt to urge a
14-day decision on him. He submitted it on
8etobor 16 and it is still there.
The first publisher in the States Rosemary Macomber
tried it on (after declaring this also incomprehensible)
reacted with a favourable roport-Fraoger-Nut in
the end was not prepared to commission, only to publish
the final result after half finished MS ready. The
same decision gas reached here by Thames and Hudson,
and Weidenfeld.
A TUUCAN VILLAGE (synopsis)
An OUTLINE with photographs. A kind of Italian
Akenside or whatever that imaginary English village was.
Eyre/Methuen nearly commissioned it, so didBraziller in
the States. In Britain it has also been to Temple Smith,
Allen Lane, Cassell.
It is now with Ben Glazebrook at Constable. He lunched
me to suggest a new book, after SPANISH TERGOR surprising-
ly paid for itself earlier this year. He has beensleep-
ing on this for three weeks.
Rosemary Macomber loves this one, and has had êt with
quite a number of publishers since Braziller.


POSSIBLE OUTLETS
BRITAIN
Paperback rights:
THE FALL OF VENICE (Weidengeld)
AFTERWARDS (novel, Barrie Books)
USA
Novels:
SOPHIA (MS)
AFTERWARDS (Barrie Books, London)
Projects:
THE INDIAN CRUCIFIXION (Synopsis)
Paperback:
THE SILVER AGE OF VENICE (Praeger)
GERMANY
Manika Schoeller
S. Fischer Verlag
6 Frankfurt 70
Geleitstrasse 25
GERMANY
Monika Schoeller has taken over the firm and wants to
re-establish its old reputation for high quality books,
though the daughter of the Book Club tycoon who bought
the firm some years ago. She is I believe open to
suggestion and it might be a good relationship to pursue
at this early stage. I suggest THE INDIAN CRUCIFIXION,
for a generous German commission.
ws a