Book Description
In Mr. Fortune's Maggot, a missionary travels to a remote Pacific island, Fanua, to convert the natives, only to undergo a conversion of his own. As Mr. Fortune develops a deep love for the young boy Leuli, he loses his religious faith. A maggot is a whimsical, humorous tale, and all of Sylvia Townsend Warner's characteristic quiet wit is evident here. The Salutation, an included novella, describes Mr. Fortune's later adventures in the Brazilian grasslands. Destitute and adrift, he is taken in by an elderly widow. Still, he remains so wracked by guilt over Leuli's attempted suicide that he is compelled to continue his aimless wanderings.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"After a decade in one South Seas mission, a London bank-clerk-turned-minister sets his heart on serving a remote volcanic island. Fanua contains neither cannibals nor Christians, but its citizens, his superior warns, are like children - immoral children. Still, Mr. Timothy Fortune lights out for Fanua. Yet after three years, he has made only one convert, and his devotion to the boy may prove more sensual than sacred." Long after the book's publication, Warner began the novella The Salutation. Now adrift and starving on the Brazilian pampas, Mr. Fortune is rescued by an elderly widow, who delights in having an Englishman about the house. Her heir, however, may beg to differ.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Her satire, so humorous, so warm, so finely feminine, has the depth and reach that brutally naturalistic rendition of a life-surface can never attain; and the fairy-like locale of her story, her impossible islanders, and her slightly mad, quixotic hero admit the entrance of beauty and wit...  — Clifton Fadiman