Vincent O'Sullivan

Wonderfully crafted stories from a master of the macabreVincent James O'Sullivan (1868-1940) was an American -born in New York City-author of macabre stories and odd poetry. Oscar Wilde (who was a friend)commented, ' In what a midnight his soul seems to walk', which is surely an accolade for any writer of this genre Whilst he was born into a comfortable life, a business gamble by his brother financially ruined the family in 1909 and their fortunes never recovered. Indeed, Vincent remained poor for the remainder of his life. This disaster may well have influenced his writing and taste for tales of horror. Nevertheless, O'Sullivan, whilst, largely forgotten among writers of the supernatural, remains highly regarded by those who are aware of his work as a master of style as well as content. O'Sullivan died in Paris, France and his body tragically interned anonymously in a pauper's mass grave. This collection also includes, ' Out of the Cloud', 'The Bars of the Pit', 'The Hour of the Ghosts' and Original Sin'.

Wonderfully crafted stories from a master of the macabreVincent James O'Sullivan (1868-1940) was an American -born in New York City-author of macabre stories and odd poetry. Oscar Wilde (who was a friend)commented, ' In what a midnight his soul seems to walk', which is surely an accolade for any writer of this genre Whilst he was born into a comfortable life, a business gamble by his brother financially ruined the family in 1909 and their fortunes never recovered. Indeed, Vincent remained poor for the remainder of his life. This disaster may well have influenced his writing and taste for tales of horror. Nevertheless, O'Sullivan, whilst, largely forgotten among writers of the supernatural, remains highly regarded by those who are aware of his work as a master of style as well as content. O'Sullivan died in Paris, France and his body tragically interned anonymously in a pauper's mass grave. This collection also includes, ' Out of the Cloud', 'The Bars of the Pit', 'The Hour of the Ghosts' and Original Sin'.

In Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, we last see Dr Frankenstein's Creature shunned by human society and crossing the Arctic wasteland. What if he were rescued by an eccentric English expedition intent on sailing from pole to pole and back - only to be cast away again in a remote fiord in Aotearoa's deep south? This intriguing speculation ignites the novella that lies at the heart of Vincent O'Sullivan's electrifying new story collection Mary's Boy, Jean-Jacques. Elsewhere, O'Sullivan takes us deep into other times and minds. Two siblings relive a sinister memory of their childhood, an isolated young man learns to walk around the city alone, a Victorian adventurer purchases a human head, and always there is memory, like 'Stonehenge from a choice of angles'. O'Sullivan's new stories are wry, humane, unsparing, essential.

Things OK with you? is Vincent O’Sullivan’s first collection of poems since Being Here: Selected Poems (2015) and And So It Is: New Poems (2016). His Selected Stories was published in 2019 and The Dark Is Light Enough: Ralph Hotere in 2020. Things OK with you? offers stubbornness, beauty, shrugging, and deep satisfaction, but I think its soft-spoken tenderness is its most generous gift.' —Sophie van Waardernberg, Academy of NZ Literature‘O’Sullivan’s new collection is a form of poetry as mesh. The poems and collection as a whole resemble a web, an interlacing of ideas, things, experiences, characters, musical fluencies, silences, humour, story, admissions.’ —Paula Green

"A Dissertation Upon Second Fiddles", first published in 1902 is a collection of four, slightly interconnected, stories. O'Sullivan's characters flit between the stories, all of which have a slightly moralistic purpose. However, O'Sullivan's macabre sense of humour ensures that the tales do not preach, and he puts his black wit to good use in this hard-to-find collection. "Of Kindred" describes a mysterious German stranger proffering advice to the large and corpulent Sir Hugh Anger so that he can resolve his hypochondria and live a longer, healthier life. "Of Accomplices" is the story of Shawlcoat Vellery, a good and virtuous man, who rather bored with his righteousness, comes across the anarchical and nihilistic Labour Argan. Vellery decides to act as Argan's henchman in various schemes but the results are not as anticipated. "Of Friends" describes Nicolas and his wife Hester. The pompous Nicolas is persuaded to make a speech for a local politician but it ends disastrously when Nicolas is attacked and beaten by ruffians. While Nicolas is recovering in bed, the MP, a portly gentleman of some 50 years, who has admired Nicolas's russet-haired wife with her "strong white neck, and the perfect and most pleasing harmony of her whole frame", takes his chance to try "to beat down the guard" of the unfortunate Hester. "Of Enemies" is the tale of a flighty, yet pretty, novelist, Mrs Ardour, who comes across a short story in an obscure magazine. She decides to steal the plot and sets on writing a novel based on the story. When the original writer discovers this plagiarism, Mrs Ardour uses all her skills and wiles to ruin him completely.

"To help a man is like reviving an assassin who has designs on your life. … A sense of obligation engenders a sense of hate." This book of monologues contains twenty-five short, pithy, often cynical, prose pieces from the acerbic pen of the late nineteenth-century writer, Vincent O’Sullivan. First published in 1899, the collection captures the aesthetics of the Decadence movement with its emphasis on excess, transgression and sensuality. O’Sullivan’s circle included Oscar Wilde, Leonard Smithers, Aubrey Beardsley and other fin-de-siècle luminaries. O’Sullivan provides each monologue with an enigmatic mononym, such as ‘Sob’, ‘Wear’, ‘Crave’. A concept that is extended in this edition by the inclusion of images, notably Beardsley’s “The Litany of Mary Magdalen”, to accompany, but not necessarily to illustrate, the prose. Vincent O’Sullivan (1868–1940) was born into a prosperous Irish American family in New York and moved to London as a child. He spent much of his life in the demi-monde world that is the setting of his books and stories, ultimately dying penniless and being buried in a pauper’s grave in Paris.

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"In what a midnight his soul seems to walk and what maladies he draws from the moon "Vincent O'Sullivan looks inside the lives of a group of middle-class English people just before the start of the first world war. The story centres around the love affairs of four young people and how they interact. O'Sullivan picks apart his characters' cares and concerns and shows how these are trivial when we know what was about to happen to them and their world." In Sentiment, Vincent O'Sullivan performs the neatest job of skinning his characters alive that I ever saw. He has written a book too delicate in its surgery to be called satire, about some people-who as it were-fall in love. There are all sorts of opportunities to stab them, but his knife cuts lightly and swiftly and gently, just under the surface hardly hurting them " The Liberator, March 1918Vincent O'Sullivan (1868-1940) was born into a prosperous Irish American family in New York and moved to London as a child. However, Vincent spent much of his life in the demi-monde world that is the setting of many of his stories. While living in Paris, O'Sullivan was friends with Oscar Wilde, Leonard Smithers, Aubrey Beardsley and other members of the Aesthetic movement. The writer Robert Aickman wrote of O'Sullivan that: "Having lived a longish life as a more or less well-to-do rentier, in latish middle age found himself ruined, wrote his last book under terrible conditions, and, dying in Paris, ended anonymously in the common pit for the cadavers of paupers."

Being Here is the first book to survey the entire span of Vincent O'Sullivan's poetry, from Bearings (1973) to new poems first published in this volume. On display is the full range of the wit, intellectual agility and arresting beauty of one of New Zealand literature's finest poets.

Solis Press are proud to reprint this collection of seven short horror tales from Vincent O'Sullivan, the master of the decadent and macabre. Vincent O'Sullivan (1868-1940) was born into a prosperous Irish American family in New York and moved to London as a child. However, Vincent spent much of his life in the demi-monde world that is the setting of the stories in this collection. While in Paris, O'Sullivan was friends with Oscar Wilde, Leonard Smithers, Aubrey Beardsley and other members of the Aesthetic movement. The writer Robert Aickman wrote of O'Sullivan that: "Having lived a longish life as a more or less well-to-do rentier, in latish middle age found himself ruined, wrote his last book under terrible conditions, and, dying in Paris, ended anonymously in the common pit for the cadavers of paupers." This edition includes the frontispiece from the first edition by Aubrey Beardsley. Each of the seven stories is illustrated with photographs commissioned for this new printing.

With a characteristic use of vernacular and an active application of his senses as he encounters the world around him, New Zealand Poet Laureate Vincent O’Sullivan produces intensely personal poems in this collection. For all that they brim with insight, however, the poems also concern themselves with larger themes of philosophical curiosity, religion, and mortality. And though the verses frequently employ iambic pentameter, they rise above the level of poetical exercises, offering humour and narrative.

Offering a rich harvest of recent poems, this collection displays the wit, intellectual agility, and arresting beauty for which the author is renowned. This anthology is full of stories that confront personal subjects as well as broader topics—family, friendship, death, war, and the repeating patterns of life itself. Giving a mature voice to their genre, these pieces go beyond the colloquial and experiment with semantics and puzzles to achieve a unique type of aesthetic.