The Taverner Novels: Armed with Madness and Death of Felicity Taverner Recovered Classic Series

These two novels, Armed with Madness and Death of Felicity Taverner, out of print since originally published in 1928 and 1932, form what is almost certainly her masterpiece, a mythic yet contemporary tale of struggle against spiritual alienation. On the remote southwestern coast along the English Channel, a group of young bohemians have gathered, in retreat from the psychological cataclysm of World War and in search of a moral value on which to base their lives. Armed with Madness begins by invoking an ancient enchantment, a numinous vision of coincident reality, where love can also lead to insanity.

Scylla Taverner, her brother Felix, her soon-to-be lover Picus, and their closely knit circle of English, Russian and American friends, retrieve an ancient chalice, which may be the Sanc-Grail. Together they enter upon a psychological and sexual exploration fraught with exhilarating possibility and violent consequence.

Five years later, in Death of Felicity Taverner the quest is renewed, this time to discover a buried truth. Was Felicity's death accidental? A suicide? Or a murder? As the mystery unravels, Felicity's opportunistic widower unveils a plan with a vacation-home development, inciting a drama played out between conscience and evil.