Brian Moore Collection
We can offer a very good collection of Brian Moore which I have amassed over many years.
Moore, born in Belfast Northern Ireland, emigrated to Canada as a young man where he lived and worked in Montreal. As he became more successful, and known internationally, he relocated to California but never gave up his Canadian Citizenship. He visited Canada frequently until his death in 1999.
Moore's work is consistently moralistic in tone. In spite of a very early loss of his Catholic faith just about every one of his books revolve around the dense moral dilemmas faced by people who usually have a strong moral basis to fall back on. Moore has always seemed to me to be a Catholic moralist in the vein of his English contemporary Graham Greene, himself a convert to the Catholicism which Moore rejected. Someone asked Moore late in life how it could be that he claimed to be an atheist when his every novel was permeated with the moral dilemmas more appropriate for those people who have spent a lifetime wrestling with their religious impulses Moore's answer, both succinct and deeply melancholy, seems appropriate. "I never had the gift of belief", he stated. With his usual ability, to get right to the core of things this statement conveys to a me a strong indication of Moore's sadness at his lack of ability to believe.
Any critical note of Moore always touches on his extraordinary ability to portray women, especially in their thoughts. Aside from the considerable bravery necessary for a male writer to attempt to portray the workings of a woman's mind, the skills necessary for such a task are probably beyond the talent of all but a few of Moore's contemporaries.
Like many another passionate reader, I have been bitterly disappointed many times when films made from my favorite books failed to even partially fulfill the imaginative vision of the writer. Of the three exceptions which immediately come to mind (the other two are "The Godfather" and Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day"), the movie made of "Judith Hearne" is a magnificent rendering of Moore's great vision, of a woman's alcohol fueled slide into despair.
There are quite a few inscribed books in the collection but no manuscripts, Moore's papers being held by a Canadian University. We do include an ALs from Graham Greene where he refers to Moore as his favorite living novelist.
Detailed list and price by request.
