Oliver Onions 759021 220237875 2008-06-18T22:21:22Z Eubot 231599 Hatnote formatting, see [[User:Eubot/Hatnote formatting]] {{for|the Italian musicians who use the pseudonym Oliver Onions|Guido & Maurizio De Angelis}} [[Image:Oliver Onions portrait.jpg|right|150px|Oliver Onions]] '''George Oliver Onions''', (pronounced by his family as in the vegetable, not '''oh-NY-ons''') (born [[13 November]] [[1873]]; died [[9 April]] [[1961]]) was a significant [[England|English]] [[novelist]] who published over forty novels and story collections. Originally trained as a [[commercial artist]], he worked as a designer of posters and books, and as a magazine illustrator, before starting his career in writing. The first editions of his novels were published with dust jackets bearing full-colour illustrations painted by Onions himself. He married the writer [[Berta Ruck]] in 1909 and they had two sons, Arthur (born 1912) and William (born 1913). Onions legally changed his name to George Oliver in 1918, but continued to publish under the name Oliver Onions. Besides [[detective story|detective fiction]], [[historical fiction]] and a [[science fiction]] novel, ''New Moon'' (1918), Onions wrote several collections of [[ghost story|ghost stories]], of which the best known is ''Widdershins'' (1911). It includes the [[novella]] ''The Beckoning Fair One'', widely regarded as one of the best in the genre of [[horror fiction]], especially [[psychological horror]]. On the surface, this is a conventional haunted house story: an unsuccessful writer moves into rooms in an otherwise empty house, in the hope that isolation will help his failing creativity. His sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by his seclusion, but his art, his only friend and his sanity are all destroyed in the process. The story can be read as narrating the gradual possession of the protagonist by a mysterious and possessive feminine spirit, or as a realistic description of a [[psychotic]] outbreak culminating in [[catatonia]] and murder, told from the sufferer's point of view. The precise description of the slow disintegration of the protagonist's mind is terrifying in either case. Another theme, shared with others of Onions' stories, is a connection between creativity and insanity; in this view, the artist is in danger of withdrawing from the world altogether and losing himself in his creation. Onions was awarded the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for his 1946 novel ''Poor Man's Tapestry''. ==Partial bibliography== ===Novels=== *''In Accordance with the Evidence'' (1910) *''The Debit Account'' (1913) *''The Story of Louie'' (1913) *''New Moon'' (1918) *''Poor Man's Tapestry'' (1946) ===Ghost story collections (general collections omitted)=== *''Back 'O The Moon'' (1906) *''Widdershins'' (1911) *''Ghosts in Daylight'' (1924) *''The Painted Face'' (1929) *''The Collected Ghost Stories'' (1935) *''Ghost Stories'' (2000) (Neither of the above two collected editions is complete; the second printing of the latter includes the previously unknown tale 'Tragic Casements'.) == External links == *{{gutenberg author|id=Oliver_Onions|name=Oliver Onions}} *[http://www.english.upenn.edu/~nauerbac/onions.html ''The Beckoning Fair One'' - text available online as part of Nina Auerbach's course reading] [[Category:1873 births|Onions, Oliver]] [[Category:1961 deaths|Onions, Oliver]] [[Category:British novelists|Onions, Oliver]] [[Category:English horror writers|Onions, Oliver]]