Savoy Books: In Viriconium

		In Viriconium M John Harrison 1982 198mm x 127mm Hard cover First publication Published by Victor Gollancz Ltd 126pp ISBN 0 04 823247 5

Our most complicated scenario. We commissioned (and paid for) a novel with the working title By Gas Mask and Fire Hydrant...which, possibly, metamorphosed into In Viriconium. Mike was on the Savoy payroll for a period and wrote A Storm of Wings, the second volume in his Viriconium sequence, in our bookshop basement; the first UK paperback edition is dedicated to 'The Savoy Gang'. His contribution to Savoy was absolutely indispensable (no Mike Harrison: no David Britton/Lord Horror), contributing jacket blurbs to our Henry Treece books and much sound advice, often curtailing our misplaced poor taste. His seedy but effective portrayal of the bookshops that funded Savoy is contained in his short story, Egnaro (collected in The Ice Monkey), and Savoy's Manchester world drifts obliquely through his two novels Climbers and The Course of the Heart. In Viriconium was runner-up for the 1982 Guardian Fiction Prize.

Cover: montage of figures by Aubrey Beardsley.

In Viriconium, along with the other books of the Viriconium series (The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings and Viriconium Nights), have been reprinted in a single paperback edition by Millennium (July 2000).