Dearest Idol

Dearest Idol (1929) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It was published under the author's pseudonym "Walter Beckett".[1]

Dearest Idol
AuthorMartin Boyd
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
PublisherBobbs-Merrill, Indiana, USA
Publication date
1929
Media typePrint
Pages284 pp
Preceded byThe Madeleine Heritage 
Followed byScandal of Spring 

Story outline

The novel is set in Europe and follows the story of a 19-year-old boy named Tony Dawson (called "Boysie" by his by Aunt Matilda). Tony and Matilda have moved to London, and Tony has left school and gone to work in a well-known bank. While working there he meets Boris and the novel explores the friendship that develops between them.

Critical reception

In her PhD thesis titled "Deconstructing Martin Boyd : Homosocial Desire and the Transgressive Aesthetic",[2] Jenny Blain notes in her introduction that "the novel's predominant focus [is] on narcissism, egoism and homosexual possibility. Tony is a monster of vanity and self-love; he also has an infantile fixation on adulation and power."[3]

Notes

Martin Boyd was not acknowledged as the author of this book until this was unearthed in 1977 by Brenda Niall of Monash University and Terence O'Neill of Melbourne University.[4]

See also

References
  1. Austlit - Dearest Idol by Martin Boyd
  2. "Deconstructing Martin Boyd : Homosocial Desire and the Transgressive Aesthetic" by Jenny Blain, University of Sydney, Department of English, 1998
  3. "Introduction : A wilful obliteration?" by Jenny Blain, University of Sydney, Department of English, 1998, p166
  4. "Scholars find a lost Boyd novel", Monash Reporter, 4 October 1977
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