Joyce Cary wrote two trilogies, or 'triptychs' as he later called them, and both are in Faber Finds. The first comprises Herself Surprised (1941), To Be a Pilgrim (1942) and The Horse's Mouth (1944). The Horse's Mouth is a portrait of an artistic temperament. Its protagonist, Gulley Gimson, is an impoverished painter who scorns conventional good behaviour. If a bad citizen, he is a good artist, so wholly preoccupied with his art that he is willing to endure any privation. For Gulley there is but one morality: to be a painter. "Joyce Cary is an important and exciting writer...To use Tennyson's phrase, he is a Lord of Language ...if you like rich writing full of gusto and accurate original character drawing, you will get it from The Horse's Mouth". (John Betjeman, Daily Herald).
- ISBN10 0940322196
- ISBN13 9780940322196
- Publish Date 31 October 1999 (first published 18 September 1944)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 30 March 2009
- Publish Country US
- Imprint The New York Review of Books, Inc
- Format Paperback
- Pages 412
- Language English