Beginning in 1914, Djuna Barnes contributed regularly to numerous magazines and newspapers works of fiction, poetry, essay, and drama. Unlike some works in other genres in which she wrote, Barnes held her stories in particularly high regard, revising several of the stories collected in A Book (1923; reprinted as A Night Among the Horses in 1929) late in her life. These stories from Spillway, her other early tales, and other stories never before published are collected in this volume. What they reveal is the breadth and consistency of Barnes' story writing, and should help establish her as one of the most interesting and vital storytellers of the great period of American literary output after World War I. Barnes is recognized internationally for her masterwork Nightwood and for other works of fiction, including Ryder and Ladies Almanack. She also wrote plays, most notably The Antiphon -which will be republished by Sun & Moon Press next year-and shorter works collected in At the Roots of the The Short Plays . Her early poetic work, The Book of Repulsive Women, has increasingly gainer readers over the past few years. A selection of her drawings, which often accompanied her literary writing, has just been published by Sun & Moon Press as Poe's Mother .
Author
Barnes has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, William Goyen, Isak Dinesen, John Hawkes, Bertha Harris and Anaïs Nin. Writer Bertha Harris described her work as "practically the only available expression of lesbian culture we have in the modern western world" since Sappho. Barnes played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. Since Barnes' death, interest in her work has grown and many of her books are back in print.
