THE Black Oxen

Black Oxen is novel about an aging woman who miraculously becomes young again after glandular therapy. It was later adapted into the well known movie. The title of the story comes from William Butler Yeats’s play “The Countess Cathleen”. Fans of Oscar Wilde’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” will find this an intriguing read as well Excerpt: “In spite of its smooth white skin and rounded contours above an undamaged throat, it was, subtly, not a young face. The mouth, rather large, although fresh and red (possibly they had lip sticks in Europe that approximated nature) had none of the girl’s soft flexibility. It was full in the center and the red of the underlip was more than a visible line, but it was straight at the corners, ending in an almost abrupt sternness. Once she smiled, but it was little more than an amused flicker; the mouth did not relax. The shape of the face bore out the promise of the head, but deflected from its oval at the chin, which was almost square, and indented.”