Ancient Mesopotamia, the Zodiac, and the land of the dead feature in this wildly surrealistic adventure story—Leonora Carrington’s revolutionary second novel, long out of print.

The Stone Door is an omen, an incantation, and an adventure story rolled into one. Built in layers like a puzzle box, it is the tale of two people, of love and the Zodiac and the Kabbalah, of Transylvania and Mesopotamia converging at the Caucasus, of a mad Hungarian King named Böles Kilary and of a woman’s discovery of an initiatory code that leads to a Cyclopean obstacle, to love, self and awareness, to the great stone door of Kescke and beyond.

Written at the end of World War II but not published until 1977 and long unavailable, The Stone Door is at once a celebration of the union of Carrington and her husband, the Hungarian-born photographer Chiki Weisz, and an argument for the unification of the male and the female as a means of liberating the human race.

Publication History:First US ed. pub. 1977

Format: Trade Paperback

Author: Carrington, Leonora

Publisher: NYRB Classics

Pub Date: July 22, 2025

Category: Fiction / Absurdist

ISBN: 9781681378947

Evening House Books

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Magical Realism

A Cat At the End of the World

The Stone Door

Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost

The Sons of Ishmael

Frog Heart