The gold falcon, or, The haggard of love : being the adventures of Manfred, airman and poet of the World War, and later husband and father, in search of freedom and personal sunrise in the city of New York and of the consummation of his life......A celebrated roman clef of the thirties, about a war poet with the added frisson of anonymity. T.E.Lawrence appears as "G.B.Everest" ("my work was Snowdon to his Everest" - Williamson writing in 'Genius of Friendship'), with additional appearances from C.R.W.Nevinson (who threatened to sue), D.H.Lawrence, Siegfried Sassoon, Aldous Huxley, T.S.Eliot, John Galsworthy, H.G.Wells, Thomas Washington Metcalfe and J.B.Priestley (who Priestley took considerable umbrage to his portrayal, taking revenge when reviewing the book: "a great oozing slab of self-pity, bearing the wet trade-mark of Henry Williamson").


A celebrated roman clef of the thirties, with the added frisson of anonymity. T.E.Lawrence appears as "G.B.Everest" ("my work was Snowdon to his Everest" - Williamson writing in 'Genius of Friendship'), with additional appearances from C.R.W.Nevinson (who threatened to sue), D.H.Lawrence, Siegfried Sassoon, Aldous Huxley, T.S.Eliot, John Galsworthy, H.G.Wells, Thomas Washington Metcalfe and J.B.Priestley (who Priestley took considerable umbrage to his portrayal, taking revenge when reviewing the book: "a great oozing slab of self-pity, bearing the wet trade-mark of Henry Williamson").

Ted Hughes, address at the memorial service for HenryWilliamson, 1 December 1977, on Tarka the Otter
In the confrontations of creature and creature, of creature and object, of creature and fate – he made me feel the pathos of actuality in the natural world . . . I now know that only the finest writers are ever able to evoke it . . . It is not usual to consider [Henry Williamson] as a poet. But I believe he was one of the truest English poets of his generation.


"Being the adventures of Manfred, airman and poet of the world war, and later, husband and father, in search of freedom and personal sunrise, in the city of New York; and of the consummation of his life."


A strange printing history, for the first edition was followed by two further impressions, but Williamson was unhappy with the first draft, so this Second edition was suitably Revised. Williamson's semi autobiographical novel about a poet/fighter pilot coming to terms with life after the Second World War.