The Eye in the Door is a novel by Pat Barker, first published in 1993, and forming the second part of the Regeneration trilogy.
The Eye in the Door is set in London, beginning in mid-April 1918, and continues the interwoven stories of Dr William Rivers, Billy Prior, and Siegfried Sassoon begun in Regeneration. It ends some time before the conclusion of the First World War later the same year. The third part of the trilogy, The Ghost Road, continues the story.
Whereas Regeneration is an anomalous, but not unique, mixture of fact and fiction, The Eye in the Door acknowledges real events, including the campaign against homosexuals being waged that year by right-wing MP Noel Pemberton Billing, and the conviction of activist Alice Wheeldon for attempted assassination of Prime Minister David Lloyd George, here subsumed with the character named Beatrice Roper, but the whole remains consistently within the realm of fiction. This grants Barker more freedom to explore her characters and their actions, the descriptions of which might be considered libellous if attributed to real people. A major theme of the book, Prior's intense and indiscriminate bisexuality, is effectively contrasted with Rivers's tepid asexuality and Sassoon's pure homosexuality. Greater fictional scope also permits a deeper treatment of the psychological, political and professional life of the central character, Billy Prior.
Real people who appear in the Regeneration trilogy
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels by American writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, first published in 1975. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex-, and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, related to the authors' version of the Illuminati. The narrative often switches between third- and first-person perspectives in a nonlinear narrative. It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology, and Discordianism.
Robert von Ranke Graves was a British poet, historical novelist, critic, and classicist. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology. Graves produced more than 140 works in his lifetime. His poems, his translations and innovative analysis of the Greek myths, his memoir of his early life—including his role in World War I—Good-Bye to All That, and his speculative study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of print.
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war. Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy".
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by his mentor Siegfried Sassoon and stood in contrast to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility", "Spring Offensive" and "Strange Meeting".
William Halse Rivers Rivers FRS FRAI was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist, best known for his work treating First World War officers who were suffering from shell shock in order to return them to combat. Rivers' most famous patient was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, with whom he remained close friends until his own sudden death.
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man is a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1928 by Faber and Faber. It won both the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, being immediately recognised as a classic of English literature. In the years since its first appearance, it has regularly been a set text for British schoolchildren.
Regeneration is a historical and anti-war novel by Pat Barker, first published in 1991. The novel was a Booker Prize nominee and was described by the New York Times Book Review as one of the four best novels of the year in its year of publication. It is the first of three novels in the Regeneration Trilogy of novels on the First World War, the other two being The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road, which won the Booker Prize in 1995. The novel was adapted into a film by the same name in 1997 by Scottish film director Gillies MacKinnon and starring Jonathan Pryce as Rivers, James Wilby as Sassoon and Jonny Lee Miller as Prior. The film was successful in the UK and Canada, receiving nominations for a number of awards.
Robert Baldwin Ross was a Canadian-British journalist, art critic and art dealer, best known for his relationship with Oscar Wilde, to whom he was a lover, and literary executor. A grandson of the Canadian reform leader Robert Baldwin, and son of John Ross and Augusta Elizabeth Baldwin, Ross was a pivotal figure on the London literary and artistic scene from the mid-1890s to his early death, and mentored several literary figures, including Siegfried Sassoon. His open homosexuality, in a period when male homosexual acts were illegal, brought him many hardships.
The Ghost Road is a war novel by Pat Barker, first published in 1995 and winner of the Booker Prize. It is the third volume of a trilogy that follows the fortunes of shell-shocked British army officers towards the end of the First World War. The other books in the trilogy are Regeneration and The Eye in the Door.
The Sherston trilogy is a series of books by the English poet and novelist, Siegfried Sassoon, consisting of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, and Sherston's Progress. They are named after the protagonist, George Sherston - a young Englishman of the upper middle-class, living immediately before and during the First World War.
Craiglockhart Hydropathic, now a part of Edinburgh Napier University and known as Craiglockhart Campus, is a building with surrounding grounds in Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, Scotland. As part of a large extension programme by the university in the early 2000s the original building and surrounding campus underwent significant restoration and modernisation as a result many of the original interior features of the building are no longer visible. The exterior of the building has been preserved.
Patricia Mary W. Barker, is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels".
William Prior may refer to:
John Beverley Nichols was an English writer, playwright and public speaker. He wrote more than 60 books and plays.
The Regeneration Trilogy is a series of three novels by Pat Barker on the subject of the First World War. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".
Regeneration is a 1997 British film, an adaptation of the 1991 novel of the same name by Pat Barker. The film is directed by Gillies MacKinnon. It was released as Behind the Lines in the US in 1998. The film follows the stories of a number of Officers of the British Army during World War I who are brought together in Craiglockhart War Hospital where they are treated for various traumas. It features the story of Siegfried Sassoon, his open letter reprinted in The Times criticising the conduct of the war and his return to the front.
Billy Prior is a fictional character in Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy of novels set during World War I.
"The Dead-Beat" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I.
David Cuthbert Thomas was a Welsh soldier of the First World War, best known for his association with the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who after his death became the subject of some of the greatest war poems by Sassoon and Robert Graves.
The Intermediate Sex was a 1908 work by Edward Carpenter expressing his views on homosexuality. Carpenter argues that "uranism", as he terms homosexuality, was on the increase, marking a new age of sexual liberation. The work was an influence on Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, both young war-poets and officers in England's trenches when they met. During the time they served together, the men were friends, and Pat Barker's novel Regeneration is a fictionalization of their interactions.
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