I reviewed the new MIT press edition of J D Beresford's Goslings (US title: A World of Women) for Strange Horizons. It's good!
Category: getting published
Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
I've spent the sixteen days since Christmas reading the letters that Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote to and received from two of her most constant and articulate correspondents, David Garnett and William Maxwell. Both books were presents, and shoved aside all other claims from the reading pile. Sylvia and David knew each other in the 1920s, … Continue reading Letters to and from Sylvia Townsend Warner
Sarah Lonsdale, Rebel Women Between The Wars
I pre-ordered this book because I’ve been waiting for it for a very long time. Lonsdale has been researching women journalists and journalism in British fiction for much of her career as an academic at City University London, and before that was a journalist writing for a variety of papers and magazines. Rebel Women Between … Continue reading Sarah Lonsdale, Rebel Women Between The Wars
Forgotten stories in The Bath Magazine
Before lockdown happened, I had so many events and panels and whatnot lined up for the first half of 2020. And only one happened (a panel on women in science fiction at the Bristol Festival of Women's Literature, in February). Everything else has been put on ice till life unfreezes and we can mingle again … Continue reading Forgotten stories in The Bath Magazine
Raging aggravations
Another in an irregular series of reviews of books I have not enjoyed. Links to earlier episodes are at the end. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Beyond the Northlands. Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas This book, bought at the British Museum’s bookshop, was so promising, with such a good pedigree: an exciting young(ish) scholar; a … Continue reading Raging aggravations
A list of non-London novels
A recent article in The Bookseller talked about the importance of regional publishers, and the impossibility of dragging the London publishing companies and agents out of their self-determined comfort zone (I looked for it for ages and couldn't find it, will post it if I do). The Bookseller also this year established its inaugural Regional … Continue reading A list of non-London novels
This Little Art
Kate Briggs’ meditation on the art of translation meanders around her experience of translating some lectures given by Roland Barthes in (I think) the 1970s, her deep interest in the translations by Helen Lowe-Porter of Thomas Mann, and the relationship between Andre Gide and his besotted translator Dorothy Bussy. I’m not interested in Barthes, but … Continue reading This Little Art
The Virginia Woolf industry is a problem
After I stopped applying for jobs in academia, I felt free to say this in public: I don't like what the Virginia Woolf industry has done to the scholarly study of women writers. I should also say that, while I don't much like her novels, Woolf's essays have influenced me, and I reread them for … Continue reading The Virginia Woolf industry is a problem
The 2017 Vondel Prize
The Vondel Translation Prize - a bi-annual prize established by the Society of Authors - has been awarded to the American translator David McKay, the translator of Stefan Hertmans' novel Oorlog en Turpentijn / War and Turpentine. It's set during before, during and after the First World War, in Flanders and is based on the … Continue reading The 2017 Vondel Prize
Penguin New Writing 39: woman sighted
This is the penultimate issue of Penguin New Writing, from 1950, and I think John Lehmann is losing his grip (again). He actually opens the art section with two paintings by a woman, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: this has never happened before. Other notable contributors include Paul Bowles, Cecil Day-Lewis, Kathleen Raine and Tom Hopkinson. Lehmann's 'Foreword' … Continue reading Penguin New Writing 39: woman sighted
Kate Macdonald 