Cary, Joyce (Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary), 1888–1957, English author. From 1910 to 1920 he served as an administrator and soldier in Nigeria. Several of his early works, including Mister Johnson (1939), reflect his African experiences. Cary is perhaps best known for his two trilogies. Both these works, full of humor and compassion, convey a sense of the gradual change in the social and political structure of modern England. The first trilogy consists of Herself Surprised (1941), To Be a Pilgrim (1942), and The Horse's Mouth (1944), the last book featuring the visionary, iconoclastic painter Gully Jimson; the second trilogy consists of Prisoner of Grace (1952), Except the Lord (1953), and Not Honour More (1955). Cary wrote many other novels, in addition to political studies and poems. A collection of his short stories, Spring Song, was published posthumously in 1960.

Bibliography

See biography by M. Foster (1968); studies by C. Cook (1981), H. Adams (1986), and B. Fisher, ed. (1988).

Cary, (Arthur) Joyce (Lunel)

(born Dec. 7, 1888, Londonderry, Ire.—died March 29, 1957, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.) British novelist. Cary studied art in Edinburgh and Paris before graduating from the University of Oxford. After serving in West Africa in World War I, he began publishing short stories, then novels, some set in Africa, including An American Visitor (1933) and Mister Johnson (1939). The Horse's Mouth (1944), his best-known novel, was the third in a trilogy in which each volume is narrated by one of three protagonists. Other works include a second trilogy, A Prisoner of Grace (1952), Except the Lord (1953), and Not Honour More (1955).