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Somewhere Beyond Reproach
Ten years after Dinah deserted Harry to marry a friend of his, Harry still loves her obsessively, though his image of her has ceased to relate to her independent reality. Unable to shake this fixation Harry resolves, for the sake of his sanity, to get Dinah back. ' Somewhere Beyond Reproach is Tim Jeal's highly readable and often amusing second novel... The writing is sensitive and perceptive.' Daily Telegraph 'Jeal is a forceful yet urbane writer who takes perception far beyond the familiar level of perception. His first person narrative, cold and simple in its short sentences, is cleverly combined, in form and style, with an ingenious detachment.' Glasgow Herald 'Jeal shows considerable powers of cool and accurate observation. His wine is dry and light and has a bouquet.' Punch 'An intricate and absorbing novel.' Evening News
For Love or Money
For Love or Money was Tim Jeal's first novel, accepted for publication in 1966 while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. It is the story of temporary gentleman George, who lives as a kept man with Ruth, the older woman he stole from a wealthy peer, but whose relatively comfortable country life is threatened by his difficult relations with Ruth's two sons. 'A first novel of genuine merit... Pointed and witty, with good dialogue and brisk backgrounds.' Evening Standard 'A subtle five finger exercise... A beautifully complex and compassionate creation.' Francis King, Sunday Telegraph 'Harshly uncompromising... The action screws together with an engineer's precision, but Tim Jeal's ability and insight give unity to the whole.' Sunday Times 'Written in a style that is sophisticated and simple, acute and dogged... [Mr Jeal's] book really has no faults.' New Yorker
Stanley
Henry Morton Stanley was a cruel imperialist - a bad man of Africa. Or so we think: but as Tim Jeal brilliantly shows, the reality of Stanley's life is yet more extraordinary. Few people know of his dazzling trans-Africa journey, a heart-breaking epic of human endurance which solved virtually every one of the continent's remaining geographical puzzles. With new documentary evidence, Jeal explores the very nature of exploration and reappraises a reputation, in a way that is both moving and truly majestic.
Swimming with My Father
'Exquisitely written and wonderfully readable - There are tears, laughter and filial tenderness on every page of Tim Jeal's perfect gem of a book.' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail An exquisite and moving portrait of a deeply eccentric father. Tim Jeal's beautifully nuanced memoir is by turns lyrical, poignant and gloriously funny. 'Jeal's prose is so sprightly, his interweaving of time-schemes so skilful, and his 'ordinary' story so touching that his book feels completely fresh - At its heart is an unusually engrossing account of parental oddity, marital resilience and filial complexity.' Andrew Motion, Guardian 'This is a marvellous book: funny, vivid, immensely touching and beautifully constructed.' John Preston, Evening Standard 'A pleasure to read: unpretentious, moving, full of jokes but also unobtrusively wise.' Anne Chisholm, Sunday Telegraph
A Marriage of Convenience
'A majestic Victorian tale... Wealthy lawyer Esmond, discarded illegitimate son of a peer, has pinched his way to the top of his profession, while his handsome, debt-ridden cavalry officer brother Clinton has inherited the title and the ancestral home. Beautiful actress Theresa, a widow, a fierce free spirit with a sinewy wit, is the woman both will love.' Kirkus Reviews 'It is rare in this field to meet the realities of passion, its shifts and treacheries; when this combines with rich historical details, including recondite legal and financial ones, the result is outstanding.' Observer 'The novel does imperatively make you want to know what happens next. Three cheers for narrative.' New Statesman 'A superb novelistic situation, starkly worked out as it would be in real life... I was intensely concerned for the fortunes of these people.' Elizabeth Jenkins, Kaleidoscope (BBC)
Until the Colours Fade
First published in 1976, Until the Colours Fade was Tim Jeal's fourth novel, set in 1852 in a Lancashire mill town transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Disenfranchised cotton workers are restless, while landed gentry make uneasy common cause with newly wealthy manufacturers. When painter Tom Strickland encounters the combustible Magnus Crawford, lately returned from military service abroad, he is drawn into a web of local hatreds and intrigues that will lead to an epic conclusion at the siege of Sebastopol. 'First-rate - I was hooked from the first page... Jeal has a close sympathy for the passions and politics of Victorian Britain.' Times 'A long, meaty, intelligent, historical novel, full of qualities like surprise, expectation and its fulfilment, dramatic description and real understanding of the physical enormities of old-style campaigns like the Crimea.' Financial Times 'Jeal handles his ambitious range of settings with considerable craftsmanship.' TLS
Deep Water
It is 1941. Only child Leo invites schoolfriend Justin to stay the summer on the western tip of Cornwall. Addicted to adventure tales, one night they swim out to investigate a supposed 'spy ship' moored off the coast. The outcome is unnerving for the boys but momentous for Leo's mother Andrea, bringing her into contact with Lieutenant Commander Mike Harrington. 'Tim Jeal is a great storyteller... Deep Water is not only an extremely gripping novel, it is also thought-provoking and it subjects the conventional ideas about heroism, romantic love and adventure to a subtle yet searching examination.' Irish News 'A very satisfying novel... brilliantly done.' Nina Bawden, The Oldie 'Jeal brilliantly conveys a child's interpretation of the world... it is fascinating to watch a child taking revenge on his mother and her lover in such a dramatic fashion.' Times
Sunday Best
A collection of John Carey’s greatest, wisest, and wittiest reviews—amassed over a lifetime of writing In 1977, newly installed as a professor of English at Oxford, John Carey took the position of chief reviewer for the Sunday Times. In a career spanning over 40 years and upwards of 1,000 reviews, Carey has kept abreast of the brightest and best books of the day, distilling his thoughts each week for the entertainment of Sunday readers. Contained in this volume is the cream of that substantial crop: a choice selection of the books which Carey has most cherished. Covering subjects as diverse as the science of laughter, the art of Grayson Perry, the history of madness, and Sylvia Plath’s letters, this is a collection of treats and surprises, suffused with careful thought, wisdom, and enjoyment. The result is a compendium of titles that have stood the test of time, offered with Carey’s warmest recommendation.
Scouting in Hong Kong, 1910-2010
Scouting in Hong Kong, 1910-2010: Citizenship training in colonial and Chinese contexts, originally issued in 2011 as a hardcover book when the Hong Kong youth movement celebrated its centenary, is republished with revisions in 2024 as a paperback and an ebook. The narratives and analyses developed here covered the "what, how, when and who" and the "why and so what" of the development of the Hong Kong Scout Movement from 1910 to 2010, using a large volume of primary sources. It tells the story of Hong Kong Scouting based the theme of citizenship training for youth and its defining categories, esp. that of race, class, gender, and age, both colonial and post'colonial. The book is also richly illustrated with interesting and instructive images, many of which came from the Hong Kong Scout Archives. The study, originally based on a Ph. D. dissertation, is not meant to be an institutional hagiography. Instead, it is a critical study aimed at both general readers and readers with more specific interests, and should enrich their understanding of the histories of Scouting, youth, citizenship education, the colonies, the British Empire, and decolonization, China and Hong Kong.
