INTRODUCTION

Revelling grandly into vice Dropping crooked into rhyme. Slipping through the stitch of virtue

Djuna Barnes once described herself as the most famous unknown writer. To an extent she was right. Her name is familiar to many, especially to those with an interest in early twentieth-century literature, but her work is not (yet) widely read. She is best known for her 1936 novella Nightwood, published by Faber & Faber under the editorial guidance of T.S. Eliot. This work is rightly regarded as her masterpiece, but she did write much else besides.

Ironically, Barnes was herself partially responsible for her lack of readership. Before her death in 1982 at the age of ninety, many editors and publishers had approached her to request the republication of her earlier work, but she flatly refused, putting a stop to all attempts at bringing out new collections or editions of her writing. She tried to get the New York bookstore ‘Djuna Books’ to change its name, she refused to let a mime troupe do an interpretation of Nightwood, and she even shunned numerous requests for the film rights to the story, including an overture from Ingmar Bergman. Barnes’ reply to a questionnaire sent by The Little Review to ‘the artists of the world’, was simply, ‘I am sorry but the list of questions does not interest me to answer. Nor have I that respect for the public.’ In the latter years of her life she seemed determined to keep herself out of print (and out of pocket). She has become known as the Greta Garbo of American letters – reclusive, bohemian, sexually ambiguous and extraordinarily glamorous. Strangely, rumour has it that she would have given Bergman the rights to make Nightwood if he had cast Garbo as the lead.

Since her death, there has been a considerable effort by publishers to ignore Barnes’ wishes and republish her work. Collections of her prose, drama, short stories and drawings have appeared, but as yet no edition of her poetry has been published. This collection brings together most of Djuna Barnes’ poetry, both vii