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‘Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea’
As we publish Dylan Thomas’s Collected Poems 1934-1952, Sally Minogue reflects on the riches to be found there. Most of you reading this blog will already know lines from or titles of some of Dylan Thomas’s poems. In the majority of his poems, the title is simply the first line of the poem, and he… Read More
A Blog for Burns Night
Mia Rocquemore has a timely look the poetry of Robert Burns. in a A Blog for Burns Night Guests at a traditional Burns Night supper are greeted by the blare of the bagpipe, its fierce notes unmistakable and unignorable. It would be hard to conceive of a more suitable opening for a celebration of Scotland’s… Read More
The Life and Works of Dylan Thomas
As Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog are published by Wordsworth, Sally Minogue fills in the background. Dylan Thomas’s best-known and best-loved work, Under Milk Wood, is the principal text in this volume. Dylan Thomas’s self-styled ‘play for voices’ is the last mature work to come from… Read More
Filming ‘A Christmas Carol’.
Stephen Carver takes a seasonal look at the many, many adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic. Like James Bond and Doctor Who, everyone has their favourite version of Ebenezer Scrooge, the actor that defines the role for them, probably from whatever version of A Christmas Carol they first saw as a kid. I have seen… Read More
Sally Minogue looks at Under Milk Wood
As Wordsworth prepares to publish Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog in January 2024, Sally Minogue gives us a foretaste of the pleasures they will afford for readers. Seventy years ago this November, Dylan Thomas died a deeply distressing and horribly early death in a New York… 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
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
Orwell and Women
As new biographies revisit George Orwell’s standing and attitudes, Sally Minogue considers Orwell and Women George Orwell’s reputation both as man and as writer has been placed under re-examination of late. New biographies of both him and of his first wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy have re-evaluated his standing, and I have just finished listening to this… Read More