Sleep Has His House was published by Cassell in London in 1948 (it appeared in the US under the title The House of Sleep). The novel — if it can be called a novel — follows a young woman identified only as “B” through a series of experiences that move progressively from the world of daylight (reality, facts, social interaction) into the world of night (dream, image, sensation, emotional truth).
Kavan’s method is to present B’s inner life not through conventional narration but through what she calls “night-time language” — prose that functions more like poetry than fiction, building meaning through imagery, rhythm, and emotional association rather than through plot or character development. Each chapter is a “night piece” in which B’s consciousness encounters landscapes, figures, and situations that are simultaneously specific (Kavan’s imagery is precise, not vague) and symbolic (the landscapes are psychic rather than geographical).
The book is Kavan’s most extreme formal experiment: there is virtually no plot, no dialogue, no social world, and no forward movement in any conventional sense. What there is instead is an extraordinarily sustained attempt to render the texture of inner experience — the way consciousness actually works when it is freed from the demands of external reality. The prose is Kavan at her most lyrical: beautiful, strange, and resistant to paraphrase.
The novel was not a commercial success on publication and remained out of print for decades. Its rediscovery as part of the broader Kavan revival has led to recognition of its importance: it is now regarded as one of the most ambitious experiments in English-language prose fiction of the 1940s.
Collecting Sleep Has His House
First edition (Cassell, London, 1948): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $300–$800
- Very good: $100–$300