Mr Lockwood's Confusing Christmas - Brontë Parsonage Event

Advance warning of an interesting sounding day out: Mr Lockwood’s Confusing Christmas

Saturday 12 December - Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth

It’s Christmas and characters from the Brontës’ novels have escaped the pages of their books and been let loose in the Parsonage, where mayhem unfolds. What would happen if Mr Rochester met Cathy under the mistletoe, or Jane Eyre came across Heathcliff in the graveyard with a shovel? And when will Nelly Dean sort out that strange laughter coming from the attic?Event takes place throughout the day. Free on admission to the museum.

Read more on the Brontë Parsonage events here.

The cover image shown is a Dean's Classics Series, abridged edition, from the stock of Stella & Rose's Books.

The Page 56 Meme

An easy blogging meme from Victorian Geek:

•Grab the nearest book.
•Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
•Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Don’t dig for your favourite book, the coolest book, or the most intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Well the closest book to me is the one I've just catalogued: Last Letters Home edited by Tamasin Day-Lewis. The fifth sentence on p.56 is rather poignant:

I remember going out and playing golf and saying to myself "Look at this shot Mick," and feeling he was there.

Last Letters Home is a mixture of letters and biography from World War Two. The above was from the chapter, "Flora Scott and her brother Mick". Mick, formally a school teacher, was in the RAF and his final letter shows his love of flying and sense of freedom and is very reminiscent of the war poem High Flight by John Gillespie Magee.

The London Book Trade Exhibition

Mike Tsang's exhibition The London Book Trade, a series of photographs of London book dealers and their books, is now showing at Biblion. "The environments the book dealers inhabit... often have distinct characters of their own," says Mr Tsang. Whilst I aspire to the beautiful shelves of Bernard Shapero, my reality is rather more that of Maggs Brothers' basement.

Sitting rather more elegantly somewhere in between, is Ibooknet's Stephen Foster, who is the subject of one of the portraits.

Local History in the East Riding of Yorkshire

The annual Local History Book Fair will be held on Saturday, 17 October, at Beverley Minster while an autumn programme of local history lectures and garden tours will start on Monday, 19 October.

The Local History Book Fair, which has been running for the past 23 years, provides a focal point in an historic setting for people who have an interest in local and family history.

Around 30 organisations will be participating in the event, including the archives and local studies service, museums and library services, local history societies, family history societies, other special interest organisations relating to the locality and region, as well as publishers and booksellers. Combined, they encompass the full range of local studies and family history resources available in the East Riding of Yorkshire area.

The event provides a unique opportunity to buy a wide range of books both old and new, pamphlets, maps and other ephemera produced by these organisations – as well as the chance to meet and mingle with the experts of the region.

The Local History Book Fair is open from 10am until 4pm, admission is free, homemade refreshments are available in the Minster Parish Rooms and guided roof tours of the Minster will be organised at set times throughout the day.

News supplied by East Riding Books whose Yorshire books can be viewed here.

And Another Thing ...: Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three

Today sees the publication of the latest installment in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' series. And Another Thing ...: Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three by Eoin Colfer is published on the thirtieth anniversary of the first book and eight years after the series creator, Douglas Adams, died. Eoin Colfer is best known for his Artemis Fowl series and was approved as the new writer by Jane Belson, Adam's widow.

Eastward Ho! - Dornford Yates' lost play

There has always seemed to be some mystery about the existence of a musical play by the novelist Dornford Yates (real name Cecil William Mercer) amongst his enthusiastic readers. It remained so until 1982 when his biographer, A. J. Smithers, included it in his list of the works of Dornford Yates. There it is shown as the author's second work, published in 1919 and titled 'Eastward Ho!', a musical comedy, written in conjunction with Oscar Asche.

Some reference sources refer to this play as a revival of the play of the same name by Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston, a Jacobean drama set in 17th Century London that upset King James I. It isn't. This 'Eastward Ho!' is an entirely different and original work.

I think it almost certain that the Yates/Asche play was never published in book form and that it only existed, as do many plays, as working copies for the duration of the theatre production. My hunt for a copy of this allegedly published book has been unsuccessful. The British Library does not have a copy (which they should of every published work) although they do have some of the music, and in every other archive of printed works that I have checked it is similarly absent. I have, however, come across several ephemeral items about the production which have shed some light on the work. In isolation each does not mean a great deal but presented together they help to describe the circumstances of the writing and production.

Continue reading here.

copyright ABfaR and G. A. Michael Sims, August 2009

Thaw Blogsplash

Fiona Robyn is going to blog her next novel, Thaw, starting on the 1st of March next year. The novel follows 32 year old Ruth’s diary over three months as she decides whether or not to carry on living.

To help spread the word she’s organising a Blogsplash, where blogs will publish the first page of Ruth’s diary simultaneously (and a link to the Thaw blog).

She’s aiming to get 1000 blogs involved – if you’d be interested in joining the splash, email her at fiona@fionarobyn.com or find out more information here.