The Runes Have Been Cast

The Runes Have Been Cast is a black comedy of darkest hue about academic and literary life set in Oxford and St Andrews in the early 60s.

A tin of alphabet spaghetti brought about Lancelyn's first encounter with the apparently supernatural. Unfortunately it was not to be his last. Runes, ghosts and spaghetti apart, there is much for Lancelyn to be afraid of: the future, women, Critical Theory, sex romps, The Times' crossword puzzle, succubi and creative writing classes.

The pages of The Runes Have Been Cast are haunted by M.R. James, Thomas de Quincey, Mr. Raven, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Iron Foot Jack, J.R.R. Tolkien and an anonymous tramp.

'This is novel is great fun. Irwin mocks all and sundry while introducing us to some of the darker recesses of English and even Scottish literature as well as to the 1960s second hand books scene in London. I do not think that I can have read a novel which makes so many references to actual works that I have never heard off. With a fairly complex plot, ghosts popping in and out, strange but colourful academics, much mirth and mockery, two young men too full of themselves, a rampaging sex goddess, lots of interesting books and authors, intertextuality galore, the idea of God as a novelist, immersive literature and Tolkien and his bloody elves, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read.'



Robert Irwin (born 1946) is a novelist, historian, critic and scholar. He is a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

He is the author of nine novels: The Arabian Nightmare (1983), The Limits of Vision (1986), The Mysteries of Algiers (1988), Exquisite Corpse (1995), Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh (1997), Satan Wants Me (1999) Wonders Will Never Cease (2016), My Life is Like a Fairy Tale (2019) and The Runes Have Been Cast( 2021).

All his novels have enjoyed substantial publicity and commercial success although he is best known for The Arabian Nightmare which has been translated into twenty languages and is considered by many critics to be one of the great literary fantasy novels of the twentieth century.