The Stone Arrow

Richard Herley

The Pagans Trilogy, Book I

Stone Age England. The landscape is in its last virgin state before civilization begins, and the ancient, nomadic way of the hunter-gatherer is coming to an end. The agricultural revolution has begun.

When the farmers of Burh attack the sleeping nomad tribe at their forest camp, Tagart is the only survivor. Twenty-five and heir to the chief, his sole inheritance now is his tribal honour: and it demands revenge. His ally is the forest itself: that, and his own ingenuity, courage and hunting skill.

Winner of the 1978 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, administered by the Royal Society of Literature.

Some opinions of The Stone Arrow

A letter from Anthony Burgess to Derek Priestley, publisher of The Stone Arrow, commenting on a proof copy:

Monaco, January 1, 1978

Dear Derek

A very happy New Year to you and yours and apologies for not having delivered a sentiment on THE STONE ARROW before now. Christmas and a trip to New York got in the way. But I have read the book, and with admiration. If this is truly a first novel, it must have behind it a long record of struggle in the art, for it is remarkably mature, and the style is highly personal though not at all heavily idiosyncratic. To write a novel about “primitive” people must be extremely difficult, and I would never dare to try it, but this one deals wholly convincingly with an ancient culture, and one is never distressed by lack of knowledge of time, location and the other alleged indispensables of a piece of fiction.