The Bird of Night
1972 novel by Susan Hill
The Bird of Night is a 1972 novel by Susan Hill.
In 1972, the book won the Whitbread Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Susan Hill commented in 2006, "A novel of mine was shortlisted for Booker and won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction. It was a book I have never rated. I don't think it works, though there are a few good things in it. I don't believe in the characters or the story."
Plot introduction
Francis Croft was a great poet but suffered from bouts of madness. His companion Harvey Lawson tried to protect him for 20 years, together they spent time in Venice and then Francis travelled to America. On his return his condition worsened leading to his suicide. Harvey then burnt all his papers to shut out an inquisitive world.
Reception
Star-News is positive "The intriguing saga of Francis and his journey through life, and madness, is a story worthy of the finest storyteller.
“The Bird of Night” enters the record as 1972 novel by Susan Hill. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bird, Night and novel can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“The Bird of Night” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bird, Night and novel provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7718073. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 2006.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Bird of Night”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Bird of Night primary sources, The Bird of Night archive and Bird research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Bird of Night”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Bird of Night” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.