Discovery of secret stairs brings Brontë to life
By Ian Herbert, North of England Correspondent
04 December 2004


The secret staircase which inspired one of fiction's great characters has been uncovered, hidden behind oak panels and just as it was portrayed by Charlotte Brontë.

Legend has it that Brontë based the character of the deranged Mrs Rochester - who was locked away in an attic at Thornfield Hall in the semi-autobiographical Jane Eyre - on a true story. She supposedly heard it during a visit in 1839 to the North Yorkshire country mansion, Norton Conyers.

Nowadays, the house has around 2,000 visitors a year and the grand rooms are on show. But, though the Brontë setting is all in place, the reference in the plot to how the attic was accessed has remained a mystery - until a narrow flight of 13 steps was found at the medieval house.

This staircase, revealed when floorboards were removed in an attic room where servants once slept, provides a direct link down to the first floor, true to Brontë's narrative where Eyre sees Mr Rochester go towards the attic: "He went: Iwatched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished."

Plath’s ‘Ariel’ publicly read for first time
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart

By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO
The Associated Press

British painter and writer Frieda Hughes was 35 before she was able to even glance at the poetry of her mother, Sylvia Plath, whose painfully sharp images and tumultuous life have captivated readers for decades.

But now, having flown from Wales for the occasion, Hughes sat calmly for more than two hours Tuesday evening as six authors read “Ariel: The Restored Edition.” It was the first time that the restored manuscript had ever been publicly read in its entirety.

The 40 ferocious poems were written around the time of the disintegration of Plath’s marriage to British poet Ted Hughes, and not long before her suicide in London on Feb. 11, 1963.

Poets Frank Bidart, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Richard Howard and Katha Pollitt, and literary critic Helen Vendler took turns reading the poems at the Graduate Center, CUNY, in New York. Hughes read the first and last poems and Plath, restored to life in a recording, read the title poem.

The clipped consonants and drawn-out vowels of Plath’s Massachusetts accent perfectly suited the stringent verse: “And I/Am the arrow,/The dew that flies/Suicidal, at one with the drive/Into the red/Eye, the cauldron of morning.”

The cumulative thrust of her crystalline vision was overwhelming and hypnotic. Hughes occasionally swallowed hard or pressed a finger beneath her eyes during the reading. The more than 400 audience members in the sold-out Proshansky Auditorium sat with eyes closed, or followed along in their books; by intermission, organizers had sold out all 200 volumes.

The marathon and historic reading celebrated the new collection, which reinstates Plath’s original selection and arrangement of the poems. In editing the book for the 1965 British and 1966 U.S. versions, Ted Hughes had removed more than 10 of Plath’s poems and replaced them with some of the last poems Plath wrote before her death.

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/stor...8&host=3&dir=59

Reading between the lines: how Iris Murdoch's last book shows she was in grip of Alzheimer's

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
01 December 2004

Iris Murdoch's last novel, Jackson's Dilemma , was a puzzle even to her nearest and dearest. So when scientists approached John Bayley, her husband, with a proposal to examine it for signs of Alzheimer's disease, he readily agreed.

"I told them that I had felt all along that there was something different about [it], that it was moving but strange in many ways. I felt sure that [the researchers] would find something unusual in her writing," he said.

Today, a team from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, publishes the results of a textual analysis of the novel - about the lives and love affairs of a group of friends - which was published just before Murdoch was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1995.

The experts say it shows a smaller vocabulary than her previous novels, which were noted for the richness of their language, suggesting she was in the grip of the "word-finding difficulty" characteristic of the earliest phase of Alzheimer's.

The finding could lead to the development of more sensitive tests for Alzheimer's, based on analysis of correspondence or diary entries, to detect the disease early.

As well as being a prolific novelist, Murdoch had a formidable intellect and began her career as a lecturer in philosophy, first at Cambridge University and later at Oxford. Her unconventional lifestyle and acerbic tongue kept her at the forefront of the literary scene. She won the Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, The Sea and was created a Dame in 1987 in recognition of her contribution to literary life, but reviewers greeted her last novel with disappointment.

A S Byatt said Jackson's Dilemma was akin to an Indian rope trick in which the characters "have no selves and therefore there is no story". Penelope Fitzgerald suggested that the economy of the writing made it appear that Murdoch had "let her fiction wear through". Hugo Barnacle described it as reading "like the work of a 13-year-old schoolgirl who doesn't get out enough".

Murdoch confessed she had suffered writer's block while trying to complete it - an early sign of the illness.

The researchers compared Jackson's Dilemma with two of her earlier novels - The Sea, The Sea , written when she was at the peak of her powers in the mid-1970s, and Under the Net , her first novel, published in 1954. They found that while the structure and grammar remained consistent, her vocabulary had dwindled and her language was simpler in her last novel.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/...1360818,00.html

History has Dylan Thomas dying from drink. But now, a new theory

Physician failed to diagnose pneumonia and treated poet for alcoholic condition

John Ezard, arts correspondent
Saturday November 27, 2004
The Guardian

Dylan Thomas, the great lost Welsh poet of his century, was killed not by his heavy drinking but by the mistakes and oversights of his physician, according to new evidence in a biography to be published on Monday.
The book discloses that Thomas was found to be suffering from pneumonia by doctors who examined him when he was admitted in a coma to the New York hospital where he died in November 1953 shortly after his 39th birthday.

The discovery calls into question 50 years of assumptions that the author of Under Milk Wood and enduring poems on the holy innocence of childhood died from an alcoholic "insult to the brain" - the result of a binge in which, as he allegedly boasted, he drank "18 straight whiskies; I think it's a record".

The pneumonia was found nearly 24 hours after the writer first complained to a companion in a New York hotel that he could not breathe and was "suffocating". But - instead of investigating a chest infection when told of these symptoms - his personal physician, Dr Milton Feltenstein, a celebrity doctor, diagnosed Thomas as suffering from delirium tremens, a drinker's condition.

Dr Feltenstein injected the poet with three doses of morphine, which the biographers say would have had the effect of further depressing his breathing. After the third dose, Thomas's face turned blue and he went into coma.

He was driven to St Vincent's hospital, New York, where doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. By then the poet's brain was irretrievably starved of oxygen. He remained in deep coma and died four days later.

Pneumonia was one of three causes of death given at Thomas's postmortem examination, along with brain swelling and a fatty liver. However, previous studies have assumed that the lung infection developed during his coma in hospital. The newly discovered evidence comes in a summary of medical notes made by the two junior doctors who admitted him to St Vincent's.

The new book, Dylan Remembered 1935-53, is written jointly by David Thomas, author of a praised biography of Thomas's earlier life, and Dr Simon Barton, primary medical care officer for Cornwall. Summarising their findings they conclude: "The medical notes indicate that, on admission, Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung fields, both left and right.

"The bronchitis and pneumonia, as well as his emphysema, impaired Dylan's breathing, and as a consequence his brain was starved of oxygen, leading to swelling of the brain tissues, coma and then death.

"Over the long term, Dylan's smoking, drinking, poor diet and sleeping problems created a general debilitation in which the bronchitis and pneumonia could take hold. But Dylan's chest disease went undiagnosed and untreated by Milton Feltenstein, in the days before Dylan was admitted to St Vincent's."

Dr Feltenstein believed, wrongly, the authors suggest, that Thomas had delirium tremens but, instead of admitting him to hospital, he injected him with morphine. The established medical thinking, then as now, is that morphine should be given to patients with chest disease only with the utmost caution.

The authors add that, if the medical notes had become known earlier, "we would have been spared over 40 years of lurid speculation about alcohol/drugs being the cause of Dylan's coma and death".

Mon 29 Nov 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1371142004
 
A woman of literary substance

SARAH HOWDEN


NAMING famous Victorian writers with Lothian connections isn’t hard - Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But fewer people would volunteer the name Jane Welsh Carlyle.

Yet the Haddington-born author has been dubbed the world’s first feminist writer and her contributions to literature as important as her more famous husband, Thomas Carlyle.

The life of the writer, who died in 1866, had until recently been commemorated in a museum which recreated her home and showcased a number of original artifacts, prints and paintings.

However, the Jane Welsh Carlyle House, run by the Lamp of Lothian Collegiate Trust was forced to close in June because it couldn’t meet a repair bill of £20,000. The museum was only drawing 15 visitors a year.

The contents of the property are due to be auctioned off on Thursday at Thomson Roddick and Medcalf, which hopes to raise £15,000 for the trust, according to general manager Hilary Dickinson. "It will be absolutely fantastic if we raise this money as it will fund the main thrust of the trust," she says.

might I just say what a fantastic thread this is?!
great idea for a thread, and thanks for sharing it's initial contents! fascinating stuff!

New York hotel offers $10,000 martini
December 1, 2004


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Drinkers might want to keep a clear head when ordering a martini at New York's historic Algonquin Hotel or they might pay $10,000 for that cold sip.

The landmark hotel, where famed wit Dorothy Parker and fellow literary lights at the Round Table imbibed, offers a $10,000 martini, complete with a loose diamond at the bottom.

No one has ordered one yet, in the martini's first week on the menu, but the hotel hopes some romantic soul will buy one any day now.

"We haven't had any buyers yet, but a lot of people are talking about it," said Anthony Melchiorri, the hotel's general manager, on Wednesday.

The drink is designed to fit with tradition at the Algonquin, where Round Table members including Parker, writer Robert Benchley, playwright George S. Kaufman and "The New Yorker" magazine founder Harold Ross gathered regularly.

Today, Parker's ode to the martini adorns hotel napkins: "I love a martini -- but two at the most. Three I'm under the table; Four, I'm under the host."

Relatives Want Poet to Rest in Peace

Families of Garcia Lorca and three others killed by Spain's Fascists disagree on exhumation.

By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer
December 8, 2004


Where is my grave?

In my tail, answered the Sun.

In my throat, answered the Moon.

— Federico Garcia Lorca


GRANADA, Spain — Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain's greatest 20th century poet, was dragged from a home here in the dead of an August night in 1936, and shot dead by Fascist forces loyal to Gen. Francisco Franco.

The bodies of Garcia Lorca and three other men killed with him — two bullfighters and a teacher with a limp — were heaved into a low ditch, in a valley near an olive grove north of Granada, and left there.

It was barely a month into the Spanish Civil War, and thousands of people would meet a similar fate.

Given his fame and the global admiration that has been accorded Garcia Lorca, he would seem the consummate symbol for a new movement to locate the hidden graves of Franco's victims and provide proper burials.

Proponents, including relatives of the men killed with Garcia Lorca, are seeking exhumation of the long-hidden grave.

But the family of the celebrated poet objects.

In a letter to the public, the family said it agreed that "no stone should go unturned" in finding out the truth about atrocities committed during the war and under the dictatorship that lasted four decades, until Franco's death in 1975.

In the case of Garcia Lorca, however, the family argued that the facts were sufficiently well known, making an exhumation unnecessary.

"We are not going to discover new facts whose importance justifies the violence of disinterring the dead," the poet's niece Laura Garcia-Lorca de los Rios said in an interview.

Poet's lost Nobel medal replaced

Sweden's Nobel Foundation has issued India two replicas of the stolen Nobel literature prize medal awarded to the poet, Rabindranath Tagore.


The medal, awarded to Tagore in 1913, was stolen from a museum in the state of West Bengal in March.

The gold and bronze replicas would allow both sides of the medal to be seen at the same, said Swedish Foreign Secretary Hans Dahlgren.

An icon of Indian independence, Tagore wrote the nation's national anthem.

Christie's to auction rare copy of Hawthorne's masterpiece

NATICK, Mass. (AP) — The town's historical society hopes to make more than $250,000 this week by auctioning the oldest known copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter —not bad for a manuscript that spent more than a century in a drawer before someone recognized its significance.

A relative of Hawthorne donated the corrected page proofs in 1886 to the organization that became the Natick Historical Society. The pages are covered with more than 700 proofreading corrections and comments, many believed to be in Hawthorne's own hand.

The gift spent the next 118 years in a drawer, until trustee Roger Casavant came across the manuscript earlier this year while cataloguing the society's collections and identified it as the oldest existing copy of The Scarlet Letter.

"This is unique. No other proof pages of any of Hawthorne's novels or stories survive," said Chris Coover, senior specialist in rare books and manuscripts at Christie's in New York, which will auction it Thursday along with 17 other rare documents belonging to the historical society.

"People are quite astonished this exists at all. It was unknown to scholars," Coover told The MetroWest Daily News of Framingham. Hawthorne's original manuscript is thought to have been destroyed after the book's publication in 1850.

Lemony Snicket: You Ask The Questions

'So Lemony Snicket, what do you think of Harry Potter? Are your stories based on real life? And why do grown-ups insist on reading children's books?'

15 December 2004

Lemony Snicket is the alter ego of the novelist Daniel Handler, 34, who was born in San Francisco. In 1999, Handler published the first of the hugely successful A Series of Unfortunate Events children's books under the Snicket name. Since inventing the nom de plume on a whim, Handler has accorded Snicket a full biography, claiming to act merely as his representative. Snicket, so Handler claims, was born in a small town near the sea and devotes his life to recounting the misadventures of the Baudelaire orphans, the central characters of the books. Handler lives in New York and occasionally plays the accordion with the band The Magnetic Fields.

Who are you, and why are you writing these books?
Robert Singh, aged 9

I am Lemony Snicket, and why do you want to know?

What is your opinion of Harry Potter?
Yvonne George, London

Harry Potter seems like a very nice young fictional man. If I were in the habit of befriending fictional people, I'd be happy to make his acquaintance, but the trouble with fictional friendships is that you tend to find yourself sitting in a café, talking excitedly to an empty chair. After several hours, the staff will probably force you to leave, even if there are still uneaten madeleines sitting on your plate, all ready to be covered in strawberry jam. Normally, if you were being treated unfairly, you could count on a friend to help you, but a fictional friend - even one with fictional magic powers - will probably just stand there with a confused and fictional look on his or her face.

You warn children against reading your books. Would you advise me not to ask you a question?
Lily Cook, London

I would advise you not to ask me a certain question - "Are you aware of any sinister plans afoot involving Ms Lily Cook of London?" - as the answer just may not please you.

Are you excited about the film of A Series of Unfortunate Events that opens this week? Is Jim Carrey evil enough to play Count Olaf?
Sam Finch, Birmingham

There are countless people in Hollywood evil enough to play Count Olaf. You are very wise to stay in Birmingham instead, and I hope that you have locked yourself inside your house, apartment or yurt rather than venturing outside to a cinema where a certain dreadful film might be showing.

[...]

I have a question for your friend, Daniel Handler. You have met a lot of children over the past few years; has this encouraged you to have some of your own?
Pippa Baker, Ipswich

Mr Handler informs me that his first child has recently survived his first year, and is seriously considering learning to walk. The creation of this child was encouraged by the observation of other children, and also for the usual reasons, such as having piles and piles of children's books lying around the house without any children to read them, and a sneaking suspicion that one is getting far too much sleep.

Has all the crazy stuff that you say has happened to you, really happened to you?
Angus Owen, by e-mail

As far as I know, it has all really happened, and some of it may happen to you, sir.

What were your favourite books when you were a child?
Bibi Stacey, Portishead

Among my favourites were: Dino Buzzati's The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily; Edward Gorey's The Blue Aspic; Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World; Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby; Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None; Eleanor Estes's The Witch Family; CS Lewis's The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader'; Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows; Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest; and a version of The Arabian Nights that included the more scandalous sections.

Where do you get your suits?
Peter Hunter, Staines

Off the backs of men who do not need them, and in certain shops.

When did you start playing the accordion? Who taught you? And what is your relationship to The Magnetic Fields?
Jonathan Clay, by e-mail

I took up the accordion while at school, as a grand piano could not fit into my locker. I am self-taught, like most accordion players. My relationship to The Magnetic Fields is one of utter respect, although my associate, Mr Handler, has been known to participate more directly.

Is negativity underrated?
Simon Armfelt, by e-mail

Underrated by whom? Optimists tend to underrate negativity, and pessimists tend to overrate it.

Your books don't end happily. Their message seems to be that it is only by luck and cunning that you can get ahead in life. Do you agree? And do you think that this is a valuable lesson for children?
Karen Gregory, Manchester (mother of a big fan)

There are as many methods to get ahead in life as there are "messages" in books, ranging from the methods you cite - luck and cunning - to more noble methods such as integrity, honesty and the careful study of the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop; and less noble methods such as arson, blackmail and making obscene gestures at motorists.

In fact, it is virtually impossible to get behind in life, as life has a tendency to march forward obliviously, like so many people we know, and eventually life is over and one's position is not "ahead" or "behind" but "underground" or "scattered to the winds". For this reason it seems like a waste of time to dwell on methods that one might use to get ahead in life, and instead concentrate on what might be a noble and pleasing thing to do with one's time as this march continues. This is a lesson for all of us, not just the young, and it might properly be described not as "valuable" but "inevitable".

Is the human race improving?
Dan Tait, by e-mail

Improving what? Or, more properly, improving whom? One certainly sees a small, wealthy group of optimists on television and in the newspapers, but I am not tempted to dine with such people.

[...]

What brings a smile to your face?
Cathy Smith, Tunbridge Wells

Justice served, the news that Haruki Murakami has published a new novel, and the tinkle of ice in a glass.

Why do so many grown-ups want to read children's books these days?
Holly Mills, by e-mail

Grown-ups have always read children's books. They have only recently stopped being ashamed of this practice and have become very brazen, a word that here means "showing off about their reading material and occasionally saying tiresome things such as, 'Goodness gracious! This children's book is good enough to be enjoyed by an adult!'."

As the mum of a child obsessed with your books, can I ask what you do to give your head a rest from the plight of the Baudelaire three?
Samantha Campbell, by e-mail

I do not answer the impertinent questions of wicked women who ought to be protecting their children from the menaces of depressing literature.

Parents are increasingly paranoid about their children's safety, wanting to tag them via their mobile phones and watch them in the classroom via a webcam. Should children be let out of an adult's sight?
Harriet Brown, Salisbury

It depends on the adult. Any adult who places faith in mobile phones and webcams should not be allowed within 50ft of a child - or another adult.

What are you hoping to get for Christmas?
Ben Norman, Streatham

I celebrate Hanukkah, and am in somewhat desperate need of some sturdy and eye-pleasing cuff links.

Are your stories based on real-life things?
Matthew Shuttleworth, aged 10, by e-mail

All stories are based on two things: real-life things, and other stories, but these "other stories", of course, are also based on the same two things - real-life things or other stories, and these "other stories" are also based on the same two things, and so on, and so on, and this complicated arrangement is further complicated by the tendency for real-life things to become stories as time passes, and the difference between real-life things and stories becomes complicated, so real-life things tend to get lost inside stories that are based on real-life things and on other stories, or perhaps it's the other way round, with stories based on real-life things and other stories getting lost inside real-life things, which might explain why, in real life, we often feel so very lost that even answering a simple question becomes so exhausting and confusing that we want to lie down with our eyes closed and listen closely to the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich and certain 12in singles by New Order.

You dedicate your books to Beatrice. Who is Beatrice? What is she?
Michelle Haynes, by e-mail

Please, Ms Haynes - can't you see that I'm lying down with my eyes closed, listening to the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich and certain 12in singles by New Order?

'Scarlet Letter' Sets Auction Record

Thu Dec 16, 8:55 PM ET

By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - The oldest known copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" was auctioned Thursday for $545,100, a record price for an American 19th-century literary work, Christie's auction house said.


The pre-sale estimate was between $200,000 and $300,000 for 144 pages of a printed proof of the classic novel. The manuscript was bought by an American book dealer who requested anonymity, Christie's New York spokeswoman Bendetta Roux said.

The manuscript, with some pages browned and fraying at the edges, has more than 700 corrections on its pages, many believed made in Hawthorne's own hand. Others were probably made by the publisher's proofreaders.

A Hawthorne relative donated the corrected page proofs in 1886 to the organization that later became known as the Natick (Mass.) Historical Society.

Don Quixote rides again in 400-year celebrations

Ben Sills in Madrid
Friday December 31, 2004
The Guardian

The Spanish government is preparing to celebrate the 400th anniversary in 2005 of its country's most famous literary character, with exhibitions, public readings, films, debates - and €15m (£10.6m) of tax breaks for companies.

The first part of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes was first published in 1605. The novel is widely considered among the greatest works of literature, and ministers plan to use the anniversary to promote Spanish culture abroad and literacy at home.

"This celebration will reach every public library in every corner of Spain," said Carmen Calvo, the culture minister.

She hopes to encourage more Spaniards to open a book that is far more well-known than it is well-read. "The most important tribute you can pay the book is to read it," she said.

Don Quixote has been variously described as the first great European novel, the first work of modern literature and the foundation of Latin American fiction.

"All prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote," the American critic Lionel Trilling wrote in 1950.

In 2002, the novel was voted the best book of all time by a group of 100 writers, including Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, Wole Soyinka and Norman Mailer, in a survey organised by editors at the Norwegian Book Club in Oslo.

Humphrey Carpenter
A perceptive biographer and engaging broadcaster with a deep love of music and the imaginative world of the child

John Kelly
Wednesday January 5, 2005

Guardian

"Oh good," enthused a north Oxford lady, straight out of Barbara Pym, who was sitting behind me, "our Bishop's son is going to play for us." Reluctantly dragged to a concert at my children's primary school, I now braced myself for what must surely be the nadir of the evening, some pale ascetic youth performing a pious hymn with rather too studied precision. What appeared was Humphrey Carpenter, resplendent in an outrageous frock and an even more outrageous wig and make-up. Circumnavigated by the largest tuba I have ever seen, he played Doris, the goddess of wind, with more over-ripe raspberries than a hundred-acre fruit farm.

Our friendship was cemented a few weeks later when we had dinner at a new restaurant in Summertown, north Oxford. The patron had boxed off each table with partitions, which gave the impression - but not the auditory fact - of privacy. As the wine flowed Humphrey, who had lived all his life in Oxford and knew all the skeletons in all the cupboards of the city, regaled us with increasingly scandalous stories of town and gown in his wonderfully clear, enthusiastic - and carrying - voice. Not until we rose to go did we realise that behind the various partitions the restaurant was hanging on his every word in breathless silence. Unabashed, and this being our first experience of nouvelle cuisine, he suggested in the same loud voice that, delicious though the meal had been, what we really needed to do now was go off for a full helping of fish and chips.

Although born into the British establishment, there was nothing pompous or stereotyped about Humphrey, who has died aged 58, and this made him such a telling and refreshing biographer. His father, the Rev Harry Carpenter, was Warden of Keble College, and Humphrey recalled as a small boy roaming the gothic vastness of the lodgings and college on his tricycle, terrorising the undergraduates and bursar in what he described as "a wonderful Gormenghast existence". In 1955 his father was appointed Bishop of Oxford, and the family moved from the lodgings to Rawlinson Road.

By this time, Humphrey was a pupil at the city's Dragon school, and he went on to Marlborough school before going back to study English at Keble. Although he completed a teaching diploma - and would have made an inspiring teacher - he joined the BBC as a general trainee in 1968, and after three years as a staff producer in London and Durham returned to work for the newly established BBC Radio Oxford.

Since he loved the city and region, and was a firm believer in local broadcasting, he might have remained with the station for life, but became a freelance writer instead - confiding in me once that he realised he couldn't face another draughty May morning on Magdalen Tower with the sound system on the blink.

In 1973 he had married Mari Prichard, a fellow broadcaster and the daughter of the Welsh poet and novelist Caradoc Pritchard; together they produced a A Thames Companion in 1975.

But his breakthrough came with a biography of JRR Tolkien (1977), an Oxford neighbour whose The Lord Of The Rings was just gaining an international reputation. He followed this up with a study of the "Inklings", the literary group to which Tolkien had belonged, a book which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1978. Then came a volume on Jesus (in the Past Masters series in 1978), as well as acclaimed and magisterial biographies: WH Auden (1981), winner of the EM Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1984: a ground-breaking life of Ezra Pound (A Serious Character: The Life Of Ezra Pound, which won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize in 1988); Benjamin Britten (1992); and more controversial studies of Robert Runcie (which made use of what turned out to be indiscreet tapes) and the television playwright Denis Potter (which alleged that Potter availed himself of the services of prostitutes).

The 'Little Prince' author bracelet fight
Posted Thu, 06 Jan 2005

A French fisherman who found the bracelet of the author of the 'Little Prince', Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who disappeared mysteriously six decades ago, took legal measures on Tuesday to claim €13 000 in damages from the writer's family.

The court in the southeastern French city of Frejus, with whom the claim was lodged, said it would rule on the affair on March 15.

Saint Exupery, a veteran pilot as well as famous author, went missing on July 31, 1944, shortly after flying out of his base on the French island of Corsica in good weather to photograph parts of southern France in preparation for the Allied landing there.

In 1998 Jean-Claude Bianco brought to the surface a bracelet inscribed 'Saint-Ex', and in 2004 the pieces of his Lockheed Lightening P38 aircraft, were found off the coast of the Mediterranean city of Marseille.

Bianco said he is claiming moral damages as his reputation was harmed by the fact that the writer's relatives did not believe he had really found the writer's bracelet, and that he had been considered a cheat and a liar.

For sale: one modest terrace, birthplace of a Poet Laureate

By Ian Herbert, North of England Correspondent
07 January 2005

The unprepossessing terraced house that was birthplace and occasional poetic inspiration for the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, is up for sale.

Only a blue heritage plaque and occasional cultural tourists reveal the literary significance of 1 Aspinall Street, a three-bedroom end terrace at Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire's Calder Valley. But for Hughes, who lived there from his birth on 17 August, 1930 until 1938, the property was a significant part of a neighbourhood that he was later to describe as his "tuning fork".

When asked about the genesis of The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco famously remarked, “I desired to poison a monk.”

Apparently the good Professor is not alone. I first heard about Mystery of the Abbey from a visitor to Porta Ludovica, a kind soul who informed me that a certain game in Europe was quite busy poisoning monks. Well, actually one monk – Brother Adelmo, the same unfortunate fellow from The Name of the Rose. Figuring that any game based on Eco’s novel would be worth playing, I acquired a copy....

Suddenly it became clear just why monks were always brewing beer and poisoning each other.  [...]So, while Mystery of the Abbey might seem a lot like Clue, it plays as if Mrs. White has spiked everybody’s drinks and relocated the crime scene to the Winchester Mystery House. Although the rules are simple to learn, there’s a surprising amount of complexity to actual game play, and the environment can shift at the flip of a card – whether or not that means one player may suddenly get to raid your stash, or the entire room is forced to sing “Frere Jacques” in rounds, it’s sure better than prying that fourth railroad from your vindictive spouse. I only hope that the game designers at Days of Wonder aren’t currently reading Foucault’s Pendulum....

Written by Newsroom    
Tuesday, 28 December 2004 

Brazil's goverment decision to eliminate taxes on the production, sale, and importation of books will make it possible to reduce prices to make books more accessible to the populace.

This evaluation was made by the coordinator of the National Book and Reading Plan of the Ministry of Culture, Galeno Amorim, in comments on the law sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to exempt publishing companies, bookstores, and book distributors from tax payments.

Through this measure the government hopes to reduce the price of literary works by 10% over the next four years.

Friday, December 24, 2004 - SALINAS -- Mary Jean Gamble organized the John Steinbeck historical archives, supervised the Steinbeck literature collection and ranks as an authority on local history and genealogy.

After nearly 23 years with the Salinas Public Library, she might know more about "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Cannery Row" than anyone else in the author's humble hometown.

Gamble doesn't hesitate when asked how Steinbeck might react upon learning that the city's libraries are scheduled to close permanently next spring. Facing record deficits, the Salinas City Council voted Dec. 14 to shut all three libraries, including the branches named after Steinbeck and labor leader Cesar Chavez.

"He'd obviously be upset. He knew that literature can lift and elevate the spirit and enable humans to rise above any situation," Gamble said, peering beyond her oversize, gold-framed glasses and pulling tight her blue cape. "He probably even read some of the great literature at the Salinas library."

Free books!!

The University of California Press have made 400 volumes available online!

(Gosh, I'm going nuts...!)

Pete and Fran have optioned The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold:

Peter Jackson "Bones" Up
by Josh Grossberg
Jan 18, 2005, 2:15 PM PT

Peter Jackson has a few Bones to pick with moviegoers.

The Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings ringmaster and his screenwriting-producing partner Fran Walsh have optioned the rights to Alice Sebold's bestselling debut novel, The Lovely Bones, and plan to make it their next big-screen venture after finishing their remake of King Kong.

Jackson and Walsh will coproduce the film with Britain's FilmFour productions, a division of state-owned broadcaster Channel 4. They'll get cracking on the script in January with their longtime collaborator, Philippa Boyens, according to Daily Variety.

Published in 2002, Bones is told from the vantage of a dead 14-year-old girl, who reflects back on the events that led to her rape and murder and how her loved ones cope with the tragedy.

The project will be more akin to Jackson's 1994's small-scale indie film Heavenly Creatures than his F/X-filled Lord of the Rings trilogy or Kong remake.

"It's the best kind of fantasy in that it has a lot to say about the real world," Jackson told Variety. "You have to have an experience when you read the book that is unlike any other. I don't want the tone or mood to be different or lost in the film."

Mysterious Fan Marks Poe's Birthday

For 56th Time, Mysterious Fan Marks Edgar Allan Poe's Birthday With Cognac and Roses

The Associated Press
Jan. 19, 2005 - The mystery man was dressed for the cold rather than tradition, and some spectators were not quite as respectful as in years past. But for the 56th year, a man stole into a locked graveyard early on Edgar Allan Poe's birthday and placed three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on the writer's grave.

Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, who has seen the mysterious visitor every Jan. 19 since 1976, gathered with about 20 people Tuesday night to glimpse the ritual.

"It was absolutely frigid," Jerome said of the sub-20 degree temperature.

No one, not even Jerome, knows the identity of the so-called "Poe Toaster." The visit was first documented in 1949, a century after Poe's death.

This year, the visitor arrived at 1:10 a.m. in a heavy coat and obscured his face with a black pullover, Jerome said. He was not wearing the traditional white scarf and black hat.

"He put the roses and cognac at the base of Poe's grave and put his hand on top of the (tomb) stone. He paused and put his head down," the museum curator said. He left after about five minutes, Jerome said.

The visitor's three roses are believed to honor Poe, his mother-in-law and his wife, all of whom are buried in the graveyard. The significance of the cognac is unknown.

Pete and Fran have optioned The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold:

(Hi Cher!  )

Ayatollah labels Rushdie an apostate who can be killed

Wed Jan 19, 8:50 AM ET

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has labelled author Salman Rushdie an apostate whose killing would be authorised by Islam, according to message carried by Iranian media.

Khamenei's reference to Rushdie was made in a message to Muslims making the annnual pilgrimage to Mecca, and was part of a lengthy tirade against "Western and Zionist capitalists" and the US-led "war on terror".

"They talk about respect towards all religions, but they support such a mahdour al-damm mortad as Salman Rushdie," Khamenei said.

In the Sharia, or Islamic law, "mortad" is a reference to someone who has committed apostacy by leaving Islam while "mahdour al-damm" is a term applying to someone whose blood may be shed with impunity.

amcorrea -
you wouldn't happen to know of any other sites like that Salinger one, of uncollected or otherwise unavailable writings, for other authors like Annie Dillard or Frederick Buechner, would you?  Even if it's not "all in one place".  I'm a bit of a completist when it comes to my favourite authors, and those two especially have writings scattered all over the place that I'm itching to gather.

Baby daughter for Potter author

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels, is celebrating the arrival of her third child.

The baby girl, who has not yet been named, was born on Sunday evening, a spokesperson for Rowling exclusively told the BBC's Newsround programme.

Rowling and her husband, Dr Neil Murray, are said to be "thrilled" at the birth.

The baby is the second child for the couple. The author also has a daughter from a previous marriage.

Virginia Woolf's Lighthouse Could Be Switched Off

By Sam Marsden, PA

The historic lighthouse which inspired novelist Virginia Woolf’s most famous work could be switched off.

Her novel To The Lighthouse drew on memories of childhood holidays spent in St Ives, Cornwall, and the striking view of Godrevy Island and its life-saving sentinel.

Trinity House, the lighthouse authority for England and Wales, is proposing to switch off the Godrevy light by 2010 as part of a review of all UK and Ireland navigation aids.

Emma Skingley, a spokeswoman for Trinity House, said the Grade II listed lighthouse would remain intact.

“We are looking at current and future predicted needs of mariners,” she said.

[...]

Members of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain had opposed the £2 million apartment block on a car park that was once the orchard of Talland House.

But planning inspectors this month ruled Penwith District Council was wrong to refuse planning permission, and building work could begin this summer.