Tartarus Press

publishers

Go Back At Once

by

Robert Aickman

 

Introduction by R.B. Russell

 

Go Back at Once, completed by Robert Aickman in August 1975, is a previously unpublished novel set in the 1920s telling the story of two young English women, Cressida Hazeborough and her friend Vivien. The story really begins when Cressida asks, ‘ “Vivien, who is Virgilio Vittore?” ’

 

The girls learn that Vittore has personally annexed the state of Trino and is now governing it ‘according to the laws of music’. Vittore is based on the Italian poet and author Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863-1938), who similarly annexed Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) in 1920.

 

Go Back at Once is, in many ways, a very personal fantasy for Aickman. It reflects his agreement with Shelley that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind, and Nietzsche’s belief that ‘art alone could hold the key to human life in the future’. In  Virgilio Vittore Aickman offers us an example of how he thought an enlightened country should be run. Trino is chaotic, but it is always colourful, surprising and artistic.

 

Go Back at Once is a fascinating and very readable glimpse into the mind of an always intriguing writer.

 

Cover artwork by Stephen J Clark of The Singing Garden.

 

Reviews:

"Entertaining." Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

"Good fun, and an enjoyable read." The Complete Review

"To try and make sense of [Go Back at Once’s] assortment of images and metaphors is like trying to interpret a feverish dream . . . the pleasure comes not from retaining a firm grasp on meaning, but in yielding to “the greater power of imagination than reality”, something Cressida comes to appreciate herself." Andrew Michael Hurley, The Telegraph

"Aickman's hitherto unpublished second novel . . . is an oddity, a puzzlebox of queerness and a utopian fantasia . . . The prose vibrates with energy." Catriona Ward, The Times

 

Also available:

We Are for the Dark (with Elizabeth Jane Howard)

Dark Entries

Powers of Darkness

Sub Rosa

Cold Hand in Mine

Tales of Love and Death

Intrusions

Night Voices

Go Back At Once

Selected Letters to Kirby McCauley

 

see also: Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography by R.B. Russell

 

Robert Aickman: Author of Strange Tales: