What do you think?
Rate this book
Passing By
1928. First Edition Thus. 342 pages. No dust jacket. Decorative green cloth with gilt lettering. Pages are moderately tanned throughout. Binding remains firm. Pen inscription to front free endpaper. Boards have noticeable edge wear with corner bumping and rubbing to surfaces. Heavy sunning to spine and edges with some crushing to ends. Gilt lettering is dulled. Very heavy water staining to boards.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1921
10 people want to read
About the author
Maurice Baring
156 books33 followersMaurice Baring OBE (27 April 1874 – 14 December 1945) was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent, with particular knowledge of Russia. During World War I, Baring served in the Intelligence Corps and Royal Air Force.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 2, 2019
Maurice Baring was one (the least known) of the three great English literary friends and Catholic propagandists of the beginning of the Twentieth century. The other two were G.K.Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.
This novel is full of reminiscences of the author's own conversion, but that is not its main objective. It has as its basis a romantic love story in doubtful moral conditions, and how each of the main characters reacts to a difficult situation.
The novel is told in the first person by two different characters, both of them in a role of mere observers of the triangle, one of which speaks through his diary, the other by means of letters to a cousin.
I have just read it for the second time and liked it the same.
This novel is full of reminiscences of the author's own conversion, but that is not its main objective. It has as its basis a romantic love story in doubtful moral conditions, and how each of the main characters reacts to a difficult situation.
The novel is told in the first person by two different characters, both of them in a role of mere observers of the triangle, one of which speaks through his diary, the other by means of letters to a cousin.
I have just read it for the second time and liked it the same.
March 17, 2020
Maurice Baring was mentioned quite a bit in Lady Diana Cooper's memoir, so with him already being in my must-reads, he just jumped the queue.
"I had known Maurice always as the most amusing of myths and the most heroic. He had been to the Russo-Japanese War as a reporter, and he went to a cholera camp somewhere else, and then I met him at a very young party and he took me to supper and said, ‘I’ll show you the game of risks'..and he laughed uproariously as I did, and we made too much noise, and were half-mad with hilarity, and it was said that I was showing off again.
Next day he sent me a telegram every two or three hours. One said ‘O toi, mon beau soleil’ and another ‘I loved you long ago in Thessaly.’
I was intoxicated with pleasure and haunted as usual by knowing the moment must come when he would discover that I was not all he thought me. I could think of nothing amusing or poetic, nothing at all to write in answer that I did not discard with disgust."
When Diana married mutual chum Duff Cooper, Maurice gifted them with 'the only copy of a specially edited anthology called A Century of Phrases and Verses.'
He converted to Catholicism in 1909 at around 35, and along with GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, made up the triumvirate of Catholic writers at the time. He was quoted as saying, "I think that the existence of merely frivolous people who are bent on amusement is a necessary element in this grey world" and these two facts sort of sum up 'Passing By' - a mixture of upper class idlers and (non-aggressive)Catholic sentiment .
"I had known Maurice always as the most amusing of myths and the most heroic. He had been to the Russo-Japanese War as a reporter, and he went to a cholera camp somewhere else, and then I met him at a very young party and he took me to supper and said, ‘I’ll show you the game of risks'..and he laughed uproariously as I did, and we made too much noise, and were half-mad with hilarity, and it was said that I was showing off again.
Next day he sent me a telegram every two or three hours. One said ‘O toi, mon beau soleil’ and another ‘I loved you long ago in Thessaly.’
I was intoxicated with pleasure and haunted as usual by knowing the moment must come when he would discover that I was not all he thought me. I could think of nothing amusing or poetic, nothing at all to write in answer that I did not discard with disgust."
When Diana married mutual chum Duff Cooper, Maurice gifted them with 'the only copy of a specially edited anthology called A Century of Phrases and Verses.'
He converted to Catholicism in 1909 at around 35, and along with GK Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, made up the triumvirate of Catholic writers at the time. He was quoted as saying, "I think that the existence of merely frivolous people who are bent on amusement is a necessary element in this grey world" and these two facts sort of sum up 'Passing By' - a mixture of upper class idlers and (non-aggressive)Catholic sentiment .
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews