''Nightwood'' is not only a classic of modernist literature, but was also acknowledged by T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the 20th-century. Eliot admired Djuna Barnes' rich, evocative language. Barnes told a friend that ''Nightwood'' was written with her own blood 'while it was still running.' That flowing wound was the break-up of an eight-year relationship with the love of her life. Now recognised as a twentieth-century classic, the influence of Djuna Barnes' novel has been, and continues to be, exceptional.