Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) was born in Uruguay, as the son of the Argentine Vice-Consul, holding then both nationalities, Argentine and Uruguayan. He wrote short stories characterized by the supernatural and the bizarre. He is considered the founding father of the Argentine short-story. A great admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, he had an equally difficult life. He chose to live in the jungle of Misiones, in the Argentine North-East and, very sick, he took his life by drinking a glass of cyanide. His best-known works are the collections of sto- ries titled: Stories of Love, Madness, and Death (1917), Jungle Tales (1918) and Anaconda (1921 . ) The Feather Pillow is an early story from 1907.

[Ford was related to Dante Gabriel Rossetti – poet, painter and most notorious of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He casts a shadow a cross Parade’s End.]

[England, long in decline, war has speeded the process. Empires are founded by pirates and thugs, who only later become high-minded gentlefolk. So it was with Roman landowners pressing outward in conquest. Plato, Polybius, Machiavelli, and Gibbon note empire’s brutal beginning, graceful civilizing, and ugly demise. The journey trends downward into corruption, absurdity, and madness.]

[Rebecca Hall portrayed Sylvia Tietjens, very much as described by Ford. Bored with life, Sylvia takes revenge by tormenting others. She is devilish witty in Oscar Wilde perversity, and a delight to the novel.]