Novel on Yellow Paper

Stevie Smith's extraordinary debut, written in one white-hot burst of inspiration. This 1972 Penguin Books paperback republishes the 1936 novel that Virginia Woolf praised for its "lolloping galloping" style. Smith dictated the book to herself while supposedly ill in bed, creating a stream-of-consciousness narrative that predates many "experimental" novels credited with the technique. The narrator, Pompey Casmilus, is a London secretary whose meandering thoughts skip from office gossip to poetry to the gathering storm of fascism in 1930s Europe.

The title refers to the cheap paper used for office carbon copies - fitting for a novel that captures the throwaway brilliance of internal monologue. Smith's voice is utterly distinctive: wry, melancholic, intellectually omnivorous, and deeply English. For readers who love Muriel Spark's wit or Barbara Pym's sharp observations, Smith offers something darker and stranger - humor always edged with despair.