"An achievement by a writer completely master of his technique, and I strongly recommend it." - C. P. Snow, Sunday Times



"Voluptuously readable . . . an impressive piece of work." - New Statesman



"[R]are, and indeed astonishing . . . exercise[s] a continuous fascination." -
Lionel Hale, The Observer



"Mr. King has something to say in this novel, and he knows how to say it." -
John Betjeman, Daily Telegraph



In Florence on business, Max Westfield has brought his wife and children with him to make a holiday of it. But while shrewdly perceptive in financial matters, Max is completely blind to the passions and tragedies that soon begin to surround him. His wife despises him and is brazenly having an affair with a cynical expatriate, his secretary wants to be his mistress and dreams of accompanying him back to England, and his teenage son has fallen in love with a working-class Italian youth. With what Paul Binding calls his "darkly penetrative vision of existence," Francis King weaves these narrative threads into a complex and gripping story of isolation, despair, and death beneath the intense glare of the Tuscan sun.



Francis King (1923-2011) received favourable reviews for his first three novels, but it was his fourth, The Dividing Stream (1951), winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, that secured his international reputation as one of the foremost young writers of his generation. This edition, the first in more than 60 years, includes a new introduction by novelist and critic Paul Binding and a reproduction of the original dust jacket art by Leslie Wood.