† In his edition of the Canzoniere.
‡ For there is the matter of an entire scene or number of scenes that exist early on in the proceedings, when it is still winter, that Stuart has decided, not so much to excise from the text – as there is no evidence that such a text has been written – as not to consider for inclusion, not even write about in the first place. Whether or not this editor will be able to exhort her to produce the pages under review, and then present them in time for publication, is not known at this time of writing. We are made aware though, as readers, on p. 119, and later, in other oblique references on pp. 120, 121, 136, that such a text or ideas for such a text might exist, that such writing may have import as an alternative narrative to the one we have in hand.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Professor Anthony Mortimer and Penguin Books for their kind permission to use excerpts from Petrarch’s Canzoniere: Selected Poems, Penguin Classics Series, 2002.
About the Author
Kirsty Gunn is an internationally awarded writer who published her first novel with Faber in 1994 and since then eight works of fiction, including short stories, as well as a collection of fragments and meditations, and essays. She is Professor of Writing Practice and Study at the University of Dundee and lives in London and Scotland with her husband and two daughters.
Also by the Author
RAIN
THE KEEPSAKE
FEATHERSTONE
THE BOY AND THE SEA
44 THINGS
THE BIG MUSIC
INFIDELITIES
MY KATHERINE MANSFIELD PROJECT
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2018
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2018
All rights reserved
© Kirsty Gunn, 2018
Cover design by Faber
The right of Kirsty Gunn to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
‘Taken from no.90 in the Canzoniere; see ‘Some Further Material’, ‘Reprise’, also for a selection of verse, all reprinted with kind permission of Professor Anthony Mortimer and Penguin Books.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
The author is grateful, as always, for the support and understanding of the publishing team at Faber & Faber, including her editor Lee Brackstone, Eleanor Crow and Ella Griffiths and Kate Ward, who saw the complicated pages of Caroline’s Bikini through to publication, as well as her agent Clare Conville. Eleanor Rees and Peter McAdie were meticulous as copyeditor and proofreader respectively. Her family, as ever, were patient.
ISBN 978–0–571–33935–8