Saturday Night at the Greyhound

The sinister and scheming Mrs. Tapin has seen fourteen landlords come and go at the Greyhound, an old pub located in a Derbyshire mining village, and she has no doubt that the new owners, Ivy Flack, her gay brother Tom, and her drunken, philandering husband Fred, will soon be the next to fail. Pushed to the edge of ruin by Fred’s gambling, the free drinks he gives away to customers, and the money he lavishes on his mistress, Ivy and Tom know that Saturday, the busiest night of the week, is their last hope to earn enough money to keep the pub open. But as the Greyhound opens for business that fateful Saturday night, none of them are prepared for what will ensue, as events unfold in a crescendo of violence and tragedy that will lead to a climax both bizarre and inevitable.


Widely acclaimed on its initial publication and running into three printings in its first week, Saturday Night at the Greyhound (1931) was a smash success for John Hampson (1901-1955) and his publishers Leonard and Virginia Woolf, who had rejected Hampson’s earlier work for its undisguised homosexual content. Dedicated to Hampson’s friend and mentor Forrest Reid and long recognized as a classic, Saturday Night at the Greyhound returns to print for the first time in 25 years in this new edition, which features a reproduction of the original jacket art and a new introduction by Helen Southworth.


“A book I greatly admire.” – Graham Greene


“One of the most interesting first novels I have read for some time. Short and dramatic, and written with a fine simplicity. I could not put it down until I knew all that was to happen that Saturday night.” – Sunday Times


“A first novel of outstanding merit . . . In Mr. Hampson we have a new writer of strong and wholly original talent.” – Harold Nicolson, Daily Express


“A masterpiece of character drawing.” – Daily Sketch