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