A Tale Told by Moonlight
by Leonard Woolf
Leonard Woolf - A Tale Told by Moonlight
BBC Radio 3: Twenty Minutes
Broadcast: Sunday 10th August 2008 @ 8:30 p.m.
It was a pipping hot June day and Jessop, along with a group of friends, stroll out after dinner in the cool moonlight down towards the
river. It was very cool, very beautiful, very romantic as they lied there on the grass above the riverbank watching the great trees in the
moonlight and the silver water slipping along musically to the sea. They grew silent and sentimental but soon there begins a series of
confessions of first loves from the men, each one sentimental and romantic. That is, until Jessop takes his turn and decries the very
notion of love. He's only know two cases of real love of which he will tell of one.
Jessop tells the story of an old school friend of his, now a well-known English novelist, who visits Ceylon and falls hopelessly in love with
a beautiful native prostitute....
An acutely observed story of desire, expectation and colonial life at the beginning of the 20th century, "A Tale Told by Moonlight" by
Leonard Woolf was first published in 1921.
Read by Alex Jennings.
Produced by ?
Re-broadcast on Friday 29th May 2009 @ 7:50 p.m. on BBC Radio 3
20 min.
Jim
