Lost Empires by J B Priestley purports to be an autobiography of Richard, usually Dick Herncastle, an artist, a painter of watercolours.
In his foreword to the book, Priestley tells us that what follows, barring an epilogue seen from the perspective of decades in the future, is the text that Richard Herncastle wrote for himself, his incomplete attempt at autobiography.
But this is also only a sketch of a life, since it covers only a short period of the artist's early adult life, a period in which, at the age of twenty in 1913, he left home to work as an assistant to a music hall illusionist.
Priestley initially claims that his only contribution has been the ordering of the material, and the adjustment of the occasional word.
The bones of Herncastle's story assemble into an enthralling beast.
At the start he enters a world that feels very much rooted in the nineteenth century.
Public entertainment is available largely via live, on-stage performers in the music hall, with most towns of any size having their own theatres.
And this is a world at peace.
By the book's end, however, the First World War has begun and Richard Herncastle's illusionist boss, Nick Ollanton, is already predicting that it will last for years.
By the start of the next decade, of course, live theatres were very much in decline, as cinema audiences grew at pace.
Thus, at the book's end, there arises a tremendous sense of impending and inevitable change.
Not only young Richard's life is about to be changed into some new, hardly recognisable form, but the world itself is about to be utterly transformed.
Interestingly, from this starting point, we note that Richard himself was born at the end of the nineteenth century, so his character is the very embodiment of that change.
Lost Empires is in effect a coming of age novel, a story of personal transition.
When Richard leaves home to join his uncle on tour in theatre land, we have the distinct impression that he has thus far seen very little of life.
We learn little of his childhood and adolescence, and even less of his adult life thus far.
Being just twenty, of course, he would not in that age have been regarded as an adult, since that label would not have applied for a further year.
And it is the months he spends on tour with his uncle's conjuring act that form the only focus of the book.
The character himself has firmly recognised, albeit some decades hence, just how important this period of his life proved to be.
In those months he left behind family life, lived independently, discovered sex and found a wife.
His companions were heavy drinking performers, including dwarves and women who wore costumes that showed their bodies, something that could only happen on the stage.
He met Americans and Italians, and spent most of his own time on stage impersonating an Indian.
His uncle instinctively knew what would work in his act and directed with an iron grip.
What might work in life off the stage, however, young Richard had yet to discover.
But there is another layer of comment embedded in this book, and it's exactly the type of comment on would expect from Priestley writing in the 1960s and thus commenting and offering perspectives on contemporary Britain.
The 1960s was the decade, we were told, when the British discovered sex.
The view has become mainstream to the extent that great writers can without question present pre-1960s Britain as an era when sex was a difficult subject not to be mentioned.
The 1960s was also an age of pop stars, free living, free love and almost free booze, touring bands on the road and adoring audiences, themselves drunk on celebrity.
And so in Lost Empires Priestley presents the world of pre-First World War music hall, with its travelling stars, its free-flowing champagne, its astronomical earnings, its celebrities and its own free-flowing sex.
It is the character of Julie Blane who provides much of the action for Richard and for the book as a whole.
Julie is an older woman, still beautiful, but scarred by life after her partner walked out.
She drinks a lot, and craves sex, at least according to Richard's acquaintances among the cast.
They advise him to beware.
He duly ignores them.
In the book's epilogue, it is Richard's wife, herself one of the travelling players of yesteryear, who suggests that her husband's description of his physical relationship with Julie in his memoirs might raise eyebrows but, crucially for Priestley, she does this from the 1960s, at a time when thinking on such issues was apparently already liberated from the shackles of the past.
In the book, it is Richard and Julie who are utterly unshackled in 1913.
Nay, the author is saying to contemporary assumptions in his no nonsense, Yorkshire tones.
Lost Empires is a world of soon to be closed theatres that happen to be called Empires.
Every town had one, or something like it.
But, by the time the book was written by its imaginary autobiographer, Britain had also lost another Empire that it had possessed in 1913.
By implication, Priestley also suggests that the nation as a whole may also have come of age as a result of the war.
Lost Empires is beautifully written, imaginative and evocative.
It can be read as a simple account of a young man's experiment with show business, but like so much of Priestley's work, there is comment on history and especially on contemporary society so that the present may be fairly assessed.
Lost Empires deserves wide and repeated reading.
In his foreword to the book, Priestley tells us that what follows, barring an epilogue seen from the perspective of decades in the future, is the text that Richard Herncastle wrote for himself, his incomplete attempt at autobiography.
But this is also only a sketch of a life, since it covers only a short period of the artist's early adult life, a period in which, at the age of twenty in 1913, he left home to work as an assistant to a music hall illusionist.
Priestley initially claims that his only contribution has been the ordering of the material, and the adjustment of the occasional word.
The bones of Herncastle's story assemble into an enthralling beast.
At the start he enters a world that feels very much rooted in the nineteenth century.
Public entertainment is available largely via live, on-stage performers in the music hall, with most towns of any size having their own theatres.
And this is a world at peace.
By the book's end, however, the First World War has begun and Richard Herncastle's illusionist boss, Nick Ollanton, is already predicting that it will last for years.
By the start of the next decade, of course, live theatres were very much in decline, as cinema audiences grew at pace.
Thus, at the book's end, there arises a tremendous sense of impending and inevitable change.
Not only young Richard's life is about to be changed into some new, hardly recognisable form, but the world itself is about to be utterly transformed.
Interestingly, from this starting point, we note that Richard himself was born at the end of the nineteenth century, so his character is the very embodiment of that change.
Lost Empires is in effect a coming of age novel, a story of personal transition.
When Richard leaves home to join his uncle on tour in theatre land, we have the distinct impression that he has thus far seen very little of life.
We learn little of his childhood and adolescence, and even less of his adult life thus far.
Being just twenty, of course, he would not in that age have been regarded as an adult, since that label would not have applied for a further year.
And it is the months he spends on tour with his uncle's conjuring act that form the only focus of the book.
The character himself has firmly recognised, albeit some decades hence, just how important this period of his life proved to be.
In those months he left behind family life, lived independently, discovered sex and found a wife.
His companions were heavy drinking performers, including dwarves and women who wore costumes that showed their bodies, something that could only happen on the stage.
He met Americans and Italians, and spent most of his own time on stage impersonating an Indian.
His uncle instinctively knew what would work in his act and directed with an iron grip.
What might work in life off the stage, however, young Richard had yet to discover.
But there is another layer of comment embedded in this book, and it's exactly the type of comment on would expect from Priestley writing in the 1960s and thus commenting and offering perspectives on contemporary Britain.
The 1960s was the decade, we were told, when the British discovered sex.
The view has become mainstream to the extent that great writers can without question present pre-1960s Britain as an era when sex was a difficult subject not to be mentioned.
The 1960s was also an age of pop stars, free living, free love and almost free booze, touring bands on the road and adoring audiences, themselves drunk on celebrity.
And so in Lost Empires Priestley presents the world of pre-First World War music hall, with its travelling stars, its free-flowing champagne, its astronomical earnings, its celebrities and its own free-flowing sex.
It is the character of Julie Blane who provides much of the action for Richard and for the book as a whole.
Julie is an older woman, still beautiful, but scarred by life after her partner walked out.
She drinks a lot, and craves sex, at least according to Richard's acquaintances among the cast.
They advise him to beware.
He duly ignores them.
In the book's epilogue, it is Richard's wife, herself one of the travelling players of yesteryear, who suggests that her husband's description of his physical relationship with Julie in his memoirs might raise eyebrows but, crucially for Priestley, she does this from the 1960s, at a time when thinking on such issues was apparently already liberated from the shackles of the past.
In the book, it is Richard and Julie who are utterly unshackled in 1913.
Nay, the author is saying to contemporary assumptions in his no nonsense, Yorkshire tones.
Lost Empires is a world of soon to be closed theatres that happen to be called Empires.
Every town had one, or something like it.
But, by the time the book was written by its imaginary autobiographer, Britain had also lost another Empire that it had possessed in 1913.
By implication, Priestley also suggests that the nation as a whole may also have come of age as a result of the war.
Lost Empires is beautifully written, imaginative and evocative.
It can be read as a simple account of a young man's experiment with show business, but like so much of Priestley's work, there is comment on history and especially on contemporary society so that the present may be fairly assessed.
Lost Empires deserves wide and repeated reading.