The Charioteer
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First published in 1953, The Charioteer is Mary Renault’s quietly daring novel of love, conscience and self-discovery, set in England during the Second World War. Its central character, Laurie Odell, is a young soldier recovering from the evacuation of Dunkirk when he meets Andrew Raynes, a Quaker conscientious objector working at the military hospital. Their growing attachment is complicated by Laurie’s reappearance in the life of Ralph Lanyon, an older figure from his schooldays whose influence has never quite left him. Between these two relationships, Laurie must negotiate not only his desires but the competing ideals of loyalty, honour and personal truth.
Taking its title and central imagery from Plato’s Phaedrus, Renault’s novel considers the struggle between spiritual aspiration and physical longing, while examining the pressures placed on men whose private lives must remain hidden. Written with unusual tenderness and moral intelligence, it offers a humane portrait of gay love at a time when such relationships were rarely represented without condemnation or sensationalism. Alongside The City and the Pillar and Giovanni’s Room, it holds an important place in the history of twentieth-century gay literature, and remains one of Renault’s most affecting contemporary novels.
From the book
“The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.”
— Mary Renault, The Charioteer
On The Charioteer
“Compelling both as a snapshot of a particular cultural moment, and as a deeply romantic story of love fulfilled against the odds.”
— Sarah Waters