The Battle of Pollocks Crossing

infobox Book |
name = The Battle of Pollocks Crossing
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Dust jacket of first edition - 1985
author = J.L. Carr
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Fiction
publisher = Viking Penguin
release_date = 1985
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback
pages = 176
isbn = 0670805599
preceded_by = A Month in the Country
followed_by = What Hetty Did

"The Battle of Pollocks Crossing" is the sixth novel by J.L. Carr, published in 1985. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1985 and followed a nomination in 1980 for "A Month in the Country", his preceding novel.

The novel describes a year spent by a young English exchange teacher named George Gidner in the fictional town of Pallisades on the Great Plains of South Dakota. Like many of Carr's novels it is grounded in personal experience: Carr worked for a year as an exchange teacher in Huron, South Dakota in 1938 - 39. Carr, J.L. (1991) "The Passport Interview". Huntingdon, Cambridge: Passport magazine, issue 2. ] Carr also reported that it was his first novel, but the book failed initially to find a publisher. . When it had been accepted by Viking Penguin, Carr took it back and spent two days rewriting it. The early titles of the novel were apparently "Oh, My America", a quotation from John Donne and "To the West, To the West", an immigrant song, although Carr may not have been entirely serious. When the novel was published Carr issued from his Quince Tree Press a small, 16 page companion volume called "Gidner's Brief Lives of the Frontier", a dictionary of people who had lived and died between 1810 and 1890 to the east of the Mississippi river.

The novel is now published by The Quince Tree Press.

Publishing history

* 1985 Viking Penguin, ISBN 0670805599
* 1986 Penguin Books, ISBN 0140077987
* 1991 "Le bataille de Pollocks Crossing", Actes Sud, France, ISBN 978-2-8686-9639-7
* 1993 The Quince Tree Press, ISBN 0900847964

References