View source for The Towers of Trebizond

{{short description|1956 novel by Rose Macaulay}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books -->
| name          = The Towers of Trebizond
| title_orig    =
| translator    =
| image         = Towers of Trebizond.jpg
| caption       = First edition
| author        = [[Rose Macaulay]]
| illustrator   =
| cover_artist  =
| country       = United Kingdom
| language      = English
| series        =
| genre         = Autobiographical novel
| publisher     = [[William Collins, Sons|Collins]]
| release_date  = 1956
| media_type    = Print (hardback & paperback)
| pages         =
| preceded_by   = [[The World My Wilderness]] (1950)
| followed_by   =
}}

'''''The Towers of Trebizond''''' is a novel by [[Rose Macaulay]] (1881–1958). Published in 1956, it was the last of her novels, and the most successful. It was awarded the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for fiction in the year of its publication.

==Plot==
The book is partly autobiographical. It follows the adventures of a group of people – the narrator Laurie, the eccentric Dorothea ffoulkes-Corbett (otherwise Aunt Dot), her [[High Anglican]] clergyman friend Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg (who keeps his collection of sacred relics in his pockets) – travelling from [[Istanbul]] (or [[Constantinople]] as Fr. Chantry-Pigg would have it, or [[Byzantium]] as Laurie would have it) to [[Trabzon|Trebizond]]. A Turkish feminist doctor attracted to Anglicanism acts as a foil to the main characters.

On the way, they meet magicians, [[Turkey|Turkish]] policemen and juvenile British travel-writers, and observe the BBC and [[Billy Graham]] on tour. Aunt Dot proposes to emancipate the women of Turkey by converting them to [[Anglicanism]] and popularising the bathing hat,<ref>[[Rose Macaulay|Macaulay, Rose]]: ''The Towers of Trebizond'' (Collins, London, 1956), Chapter 2</ref> while Laurie has more worldly preoccupations. Historical references (British Christianity since the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]], nineteenth-century travellers to the [[Ottoman Empire]], the First World War, the [[Fourth Crusade]], [[Paul the Apostle|St. Paul's]] [[Paul the Apostle#Third missionary journey|third missionary journey]], [[Troy]]) abound.

The geographical canvas is enlarged with the two senior characters eloping to the [[Soviet Union]] and the heroine meeting her lover in Turkey, and then her semi-estranged mother in [[Jerusalem]]. The final chapters raise multiple issues such as the souls of animals, and culminate in a fatal accident and its aftermath.

At another level the book, against its [[Anglo-Catholic]] backdrop, deals with the conflict between Laurie's attraction to Christianity and her adulterous love for a married man.<ref name=nyb>[http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=1239 The Towers of Trebizond] at nybooks.com (accessed 14 November 2007)</ref> This was a problem Macaulay had faced in her own life, having had an affair with the married novelist and former Roman Catholic priest [[Gerald O'Donovan]] (1871–1942) from 1920 until his death.<ref>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34668 Macaulay, Dame (Emilie) Rose (1881–1958), author] by Constance Babington Smith, revised by Katherine Mullin, in ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' online (accessed 15 November 2007)</ref>

The book's opening sentence is,<ref name=tt>Macaulay, Rose: ''The Towers of Trebizond'' (Collins, London, 1956)</ref><ref>[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3894040 Pearl, Nancy: ''Famous First Words''] at npr.org (accessed 14 November 2007)</ref>{{blockquote|"Take my camel, dear", said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.}}

The Turkish doctor says of Aunt Dot, "She is a woman of dreams. Mad dreams, dreams of crazy, impossible things. And they aren't all of conversion to the Church, oh no. Nor all of the liberation of women, oh no. Her eyes are on far mountains, always some far peak where she will go. She looks so firm and practical, that nice face, so fair and plump and shrewd, but look in her eyes, you will sometimes catch a strange gleam."<ref name=tt/>

Barbara Reynolds has suggested that the character of Aunt Dot is based on Rose Macaulay's friend [[Dorothy L. Sayers]], and that Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg has elements of Frs. [[Patrick McLaughlin (churchman)|Patrick McLaughlin]], [[Gilbert Shaw]] and [[Gerard Irvine]].<ref>[http://copies.anglicansonline.org/churchtimes/000910/feat.htm Take away the camel, and all is revealed] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711210336/http://copies.anglicansonline.org/churchtimes/000910/feat.htm |date=11 July 2007 }} by Barbara Reynolds at anglicansonline.org (accessed 14 November 2007)</ref>

The book was described in ''[[The New York Times]]'': "Fantasy, farce, high comedy, lively travel material, delicious japes at many aspects of the frenzied modern world, and a succession of illuminating thoughts about love, sex, life, organized churches and religion are all tossed together with enchanting results."<ref name=nyb/>

==Editions==
*The first UK edition was published by Collins of London in 1956. 
* The first US edition (under the same title) was published by Farrar, Straus, of New York, in 1957, with a new edition by Farrar Straus & Giroux in 1980.<ref>[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374278547 The Towers of Trebizond (Farrar Straus & Giroux)] at amazon.com (accessed 14 November 2007) {{ISBN|978-0-374-27854-0}}</ref>
*A ''de luxe'' edition from the [[Folio Society]], of London, with an introduction by [[Joanna Trollope]], appeared in 2005 and is still in print.
*A UK paperback version is also still in print, published by Flamingo.<ref>[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0006544215 The Towers of Trebizond (Flamingo)] at amazon.co.uk (accessed 14 November 2007) {{ISBN|978-0-00-654421-0}}</ref>
*An edition was published by ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'' in 2003 with an introduction by [[Jan Morris]].

==References==
* Babington Smith, Constance (1972). ''Rose Macaulay''. London: Collins. {{ISBN|0-00-211720-7}}.
* Bensen, Alice R. (1969). ''Rose Macaulay''. New York: Twayne Publishers.
* Crawford, Alice (1995). ''Paradise Pursued: The Novels of Rose Macaulay''. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. {{ISBN|0-8386-3573-3}}.
* Emery, Jane (1991). ''Rose Macaulay: A Writer's Life''. London: J. Murray. {{ISBN|0-7195-4768-7}}.
* Fromm, Gloria G. (October 1986). "The Worldly and Unwordly Fortunes of Rose Macaulay". ''The New Criterion'' 5 (2): 38–44.
* Hein, David. "Faith and Doubt in Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond". ''Anglican Theological Review'' 88 (2006): 47–68. Abstract: http://www.anglicantheologicalreview.org/read/article/508/
* Hein, David. "Rose Macaulay: A Voice from the Edge." In David Hein and Edward Henderson, eds., ''C. S. Lewis and Friends'', 93–115. London: SPCK; Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011.
* LeFanu, Sarah (2003). ''Rose Macaulay''. London: Virago.
* Moore, Judith (15 November 1978). "Rose Macaulay: A Model for Christian Feminists". ''Christian Century'' 95 (37): 1098–1101.
* Passty, Jeanette N. (1988). ''Eros and Androgyny: The Legacy of Rose Macaulay''. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. {{ISBN|0-8386-3284-X}}.

==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{FadedPage|id=20210280|name=The Towers of Trebizond}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Towers of Trebizond, The}}
[[Category:1956 British novels]]
[[Category:Anglicanism]]
[[Category:British adventure novels]]
[[Category:British autobiographical novels]]
[[Category:English novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in Turkey]]
[[Category:William Collins, Sons books]]