Nightwood: Updated Version

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' fiery and enigmatic masterpiece, is considered one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era. The novel belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch, according to Times Literary Supplement. Set in the period between the two World Wars, Nightwood unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities—Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—where the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold yet surprisingly porous.

The outsized characters who populate this world are some of the most unforgettable in all of fiction. Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries Guido and then embarks on a series of affairs with Nora Flood and Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and supposed gynecologist, whose digressive speeches are filled with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions.

The novel's depiction of these characters and their relationships has established it as a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature. As Nora says, "A man is another person; a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own."

What is most striking about Nightwood is Djuna Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which prompted T. S. Eliot to praise the novel as "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." With a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still possesses the same electric charge it had upon its initial publication in 1936.

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