The Magic of My Youth by Arthur Calder-Marshall

It's good to know The Magic of My Youth will be available once more, as it deserves to be' - Michael Holroyd, biographer. 'The delicate art of autobiography is one to which the English bring a particular talent. Bizarre, droll, and threaded with the melancholia of a generation who only just escaped the devastation of World War I, it is sure to delight the modern reader. Calder-Marshall pokes fun at his own youthful preoccupations, but nonetheless a sinister, menacing edge lingers. This is a wonderful tale of English eccentrics, told with deadpan British humour. At last Arthur encounters the man himself, in a dingy café.

Here he meets the femme fatale Betty May, who blames Crowley for the death of her husband, and tells fantastic tales of satanism in Sicily. In London, Arthur graduates towards the epicentre of Bohemian literary life in the pubs of Fitzrovia. When Arthur goes up to Oxford Vicky Bird connects him with circles who dabble in the supernatural. He is haunted by some romantic tragedy in his past, in which Crowley may be implicated. As boys growing up in a small country town Arthur and his brother befriend an eccentric poet, whom they dub Vicky Bird – in fact a fairly well-known literary figure called Victor Neuberg. The title needs to be taken quite literally as much of the narrative revolves around the shadowy figure of occultist Aleister Crowley, at the height of his dubious powers during this era. A charming, quirky memoir from British author Arthur Calder-Marshall, recalling his youth in 1920s England.

The Magic of My Youth by Arthur Calder-Marshall