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Mia Rocquemore looks at the works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles” Many of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s most beloved poems are set on the water. In Crossing the Bar, the eighty-year-old poet, writing as he passed over the Solent to the Isle of Wight, hopes that his own… Read More
Dylan Thomas 1914 – 1953
The 9th of November 2023 marks seventy years since the death of Dylan Thomas at the age of 39 in New York. Thomas’s works move into the public domain on 1st of January 2024, and next year will see the publication by Wordsworth of two editions of his works. On the 1st of January we… Read More
The Fall of the House of Usher
In the summer of 1960, American International Pictures released a little gothic number called The Fall of the House of Usher based on the strange and phantasmagoric short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1839. AIP was a low-budget, independent outfit that banged out cheap… Read More
Man-Size in Marble: A Tale for Halloween
‘Whatever you do, sir, lock the door early on All Saints’ Eve, and make the blessed cross-sign over the doorstep and on the windows.’ Halloween season, in common with Christmas, is the time of year many an avid reader will reach for a ghostly tale. Whilst sitting comfortably by the fireside hopefully the story will… Read More
Shakespeare’s Titles
David Ellis finds fault with ‘The Swan of Avon’ Shakespeare’s Titles As anyone who has ever put pen to paper will know, finding titles for what you have written can be difficult. Reading a book on Shakespeare’s treatment of old age I was struck recently by the felicity of its title. The author had taken… Read More
Book of the Week: The Mystery of Edwin Drood
David Stuart Davies looks at Charles Dickens’s last, unfinished, novel The real mystery of Edwin Drood concerns his sudden disappearance, which raises the question of whether he is dead or alive, for no body is discovered. If dead, has he been murdered and if so, by whom? Sadly, Charles Dickens died before he was able… Read More
Back to School with Anne of Avonlea
Denise Hanrahan-Wells looks at Anne of Avonlea, the sequel to Anne of Green Gables. ‘Oh, will I ever learn to stop and reflect a little before doing reckless things? Mrs Lynde always told me I would do something dreadful someday, and now I’ve done it.’ Fans of the eponymous orphan Anne Shirley will have probably… Read More
D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Rainbow’
Like the later Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Rainbow was initially banned for obscenity on its publication in 1915, but for only a mere eleven years. Mia Rocquemore revisits this complex novel. D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow contains all the features of a Victorian story that so appeal to the critical eye of modern literature undergraduates: there… Read More
Listening for the leaden circles dissolving in the air
Stefania Ciocia finds new harmonies in The Hours and Mrs Dalloway “In a play, if more than one person speaks at the same time, it’s just noise. No one can understand a word. But with music, with music you can have twenty individuals all talking at once, and it’s not noise – it’s a perfect… Read More