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  • Published: 24 October 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141198088
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $44.00

The Pursued




A dark, gripping 1930s psychological thriller of revenge, intrigue and obsession

Marjorie had never seen a dead body until she got home one summer evening and found her sister with her head in the oven. She looked peaceful, as if she was asleep. Their mother suspects, however, that Dot's death was far from natural - and that she knows who the killer is. Slowly and meticulously, she plots her terrible revenge.

C. S. Forester's 1935 thriller The Pursued, lost for decades, rewrote the traditions of crime fiction to create a dark, twisted portrayal of obsession and retribution.

  • Published: 24 October 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141198088
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $44.00

About the author

C. S. Forester

C. S. Forester was born in Cairo in 1899, where his father was stationed as a government official. He studied medicine at Guy's Hospital and, after leaving Guy's without a degree, he turned to writing as a career.

His first success was Payment Deferred, a novel written at the age of twenty-four and later dramatized and filmed with Charles Laughton in the leading role. In 1932 Forester was offered a Hollywood contract, and from then until 1939 he spent thirteen weeks of every year in America.

On the outbreak of war he entered the Ministry of Information and later he sailed with the Royal Navy to collect the material for The Ship. He made a voyage to the Bering Sea to gather material for a similar book on the United States Navy, and it was during this trip that he was stricken with arteriosclerosis, a disease which left him crippled. However, he continued to write and in the Hornblower novels created the most renowned sailor in contemporary fiction. He died in 1966.

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Praise for The Pursued

C. S. Forester is a splendid storyteller

Guardian

I recommend Forester to every literate I know

Ernest Hemingway

The Pursued is a wonderful, almost miraculous discovery: a hitherto unknown crime novel by an author who is the unsung godfather of English noir

Andrew Taylor

Forester has a great eye and a subtle understanding of the dangerous passions lurking just beneath the surface of everyday life. A riveting read.

Sarah Waters

a tale of very English murder, it foreshadows the unease of metropolitan life in its near-contemporaries, George Orwell's Coming Up for Air, Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square and Graham Greene's Brighton Rock

Adrian Turpin, Financial Times

A brilliant tale of twisted minds in suburban Thirties London

Daily Telegraph

Skilful and chilling ... a tense psychological drama

Sunday Times

Murder, lust, obsession, retribution, they're all here

Daily Mail

Exposes the passions that lurk behind the net curtains of lower-middle-class suburbia ... teeming with atmosphere

The Times