DEAN SPANLEY NOVEL EB

The classic humorous novel about an alcohol-loving clergyman who thinks he is the reincarnation of a dog. Complete with the screenplay and photos from the new film starring Peter O'Toole and Sam Neill.

Dean Spanley is the very archetype of a bland churchman: affable, conventional, prudent without being a prig. Only his keen interest in the transmigration of souls and almost excessive enthusiasm for dogs betray any shadow of eccentricity. And then, richly primed with a few glasses of Imperial Tokay, he slips over the threshold between past and present and becomes a dog. Or are his canine memories no more than fancy? Surely no mere dean could speak so vividly, with such total conviction, of the joys of hunting, of rolling in fresh dung, of baying the moon? No human could know so much of rabbiting, the importance of buying bones, the contemptibility of pigs. My Talks With Dean Spanley, first published in 1936, is certainly Lord Dunsany's funniest book and, in its unique way, a remarkable tour de force.

Now adapted into a new comedy-drama feature film, DEAN SPANLEY follows a father and son as they encounter the eponymous eccentric in this story of reincarnation and reconciliation set in Edwardian England. Adapted by Alan Sharp (Rob Roy) and directed by New Zealand-born Toa Fraser (No.2), a truly impressive international cast is led by eight-time Academy Award nominee Peter O'Toole (Venus, Lawrence of Arabia) and also features Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy, Gosford Park), Bryan Brown (Cocktail, Gorillas in the Mist) and Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, My Brilliant Career).

This special edition includes Lord Dunsany's witty and inventive original novel, as well as Alan Sharp's hilarious screenplay, which faithfully adapts and also expands upon the events in the book. Complete with colour photos and interviews with the principal film-makers, this whimsical, wintry tale about dogs, reincarnation and the effects of alcohol makes perfect Christmas reading for lovers of classic humorous storytelling.

FictionClassicsHistoricalHumorousLiterarySmall Town & Rural

RELEASED2009

PUBLISHERHarperCollins Publishers

LENGTH320

LANGUAGEENG

Lord DunsanyIrish writer and dramatist (1878-1957)

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett was born in Ireland, the first son of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany and Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax. He spent his childhood at several family properties, including Dunstall Priory in Shoreham, Kent, Dunsany Castle in County Meath, as wells as other family homes such as in London. His schooling was at Cheam, Eton and finally Sandhurst, which he entered in 1896. He became the 18th Baron of Dunsany when his father died in 1899, and he returned to Dunsany Castle in 1901 after war duty. He married Lady Beatrice Child Villiers in 1904. Their child, Randal, was born in 1906. Edward Plunkett was a writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, which he published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes many hundreds of published short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays.