#Geoffrey Grigson

[frimleyblogger]

Bluebell Glue

The folklore associated with the #bluebell and how it was used to make #books and #arrows

Bluebell bulbs are full of a viscid juice and are poisonous in their fresh state, at least for humans and most animals except, curiously, badgers. To consume them in large quantities could be fatal. Some folk traditions played on the flower’s inimical properties. Bluebells were said to be used in witches’ potions. Nightmares could be warded off by placing bluebells under a pillow or hanging them…

[alwaysalreadyangry]

please enjoy some early january entries from the geoffrey grigson-edited anthology the english year

[comocava]

Flowers of the Meadow

By: Geoffrey Grigson

[bookloversofbath]

Poems of John Clare's Madness :: Edited by Geoffrey Grigson

Poems of John Clare’s Madness :: Edited by Geoffrey Grigson

Poems of John Clare’s Madness :: Edited by Geoffrey Grigson soon to be presented for sale on the super BookLovers of Bath web site! London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1949, Hardback in dust wrapper. Includes: Timeline; Black & white plates; Frontispiece portrait; From the cover: During his long years in the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, John Clare wrote many hundreds of poems, including such…

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

- Dame Edith Sitwell DBE, poet, critic, eccentric.

Sitwell’s writing life began around 1912, when she was 25. Poetry slipped into the space previously occupied by music, though another spur seems to have been other people. The extent of Sitwell's acquaintance is astonishing: her address book, if ever she was in possession of such a bourgeois item, would read now like a roll call of early 20th-century artistic life. Sickert, Walton, Yeats, Joyce, Eliot, Woolf: she knew them all. With her Saturday-night salons, and her editorship of the journal Wheels, Sitwell established herself as an enemy of the old (specifically of the Georgian poets) and a cheerleader of the new; her own work, especially Facade, first performed in 1923, reinforced this impression. It wasn't long before her peers were swooning at her feet. 

She was known for being a larger than life fashion horse with flamboyant eccentric taste as much as her poetry and literary critques. Contemporary critics accused her of overambition; might she not, they wondered, be better off limiting herself to a smaller canvas? Sitwell, though, was convinced that modesty was death for the woman poet. "There was no one to point the way," she told Stephen Spender in 1946, at the peak of her success. "I had to learn everything – learn, amongst other things, not to be timid." Her clothes, then, were a weapon in the war against timidity – and in this sense are as much a part of Sitwell's brand of modernism as her fondness for reciting poetry through an upturned traffic cone.

Then again, Sitwell was in need of armour long before she knew she wanted to be a writer. A neglected child and, by modern standards, an abused one, her parents, Sir George and Lady Ida (George was the fourth baronet Sitwell), were distant and, in the case of Ida, feckless (in 1915, when Edith was in her 20s, Lady Ida stood trial for fraud and, having been convicted, served a short prison sentence). Their daughter was a mystery to them and, possibly, a shock, being curved of spine and crooked of nose (Ida was famously beautiful). Their cruelty began with their refusal formally to educate their daughter (Sir George read Tennyson's "The Princess" and promptly decided that university made girls "unwomanly"), and ended with their decision to straighten both her spine and nose with the aid of metal braces ("my Bastille", Edith called her back brace).

Later, during her coming out, Edith asked a man at dinner whether he preferred Brahms or Mozart, and was hastily withdrawn from the circuit. When she left home – she lived for many years with her old governess, Helen Rootham, though they were not lovers – George paid her rent, but meagrely. He seemed not to mind that while he languished in fine houses in Yorkshire (Renishaw is near Sheffield) and Italy, his daughter inhabited shabby rooms in grubby parts of London and Paris. No wonder Sitwell was so close to her writer brothers, Sacheverell and, in particular, the repulsively selfish Osbert.

Sitwell had angular features resembling Queen Elizabeth I and she stood six feet tall. She often dressed in an unusual manner with gowns of brocade or velvet, with gold turbans and many rings; her jewellery is now in the jewellery galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Her unusual appearance provoked critics almost as much as her verse, and she was the subject of virulent personal attacks from Geoffrey Grigson, F. R. Leavis, and others. She gave as good as she got, describing much feared and highly influential Cambridge literature professor, F.R. Leavis, as "a tiresome, whining, pettyfogging little pipsqueak".

Sitwell treated her enemies with aristocratic scorn. Noël Coward wrote a skit on her and her two brothers as "the Swiss Family Whittlebot" for his 1923 revue London Calling!, and she refused to speak to him until they were reconciled after her 70th birthday party at London's Royal Festival Hall.

In a correspondence featured in the Times Literary Supplement in 1963, she participated in an ongoing debate on the value of the work of William S. Burroughs and the nature of literary criticism, initiated by critic John Willard. Sitwell stated that she was delighted by Willard's wholly negative review of Burroughs' work, despite claiming not to know who Burroughs was. In the same letter, she described Lady Chatterley's Lover as an "insignificant, dirty little book", and rounded out her letter with the statement that she preferred Chanel Number 5 to having her nose "nailed to other people's lavatories".

Sitwell died in 1964, a paranoid alcoholic and her poetry forgotten. Her fans blame its neglect on her class (the upper-class woman as dilettante), her gender (the misogyny of critics such as Geoffrey Grigson), and the austerity of a new generation of poets (Larkin, Kingsley Amis) allergic both to symbolism and complexity.

Sitwell is important: a modernist pioneer; a glorious example of the outsider life well led; a passionate champion of other writers (she was Wilfred Owen's first editor). Above all, a chastening example of the way literary fame can vanish almost overnight.

[martyncrucefix]

Flowers of Lime: Geoffrey Grigson's 'Selected Poems'

Flowers of Lime: Geoffrey Grigson’s ‘Selected Poems’

Surely we all have one or two Faber anthologies edited by Geoffrey Grigson on our shelves? Love Poems, Popular Verse, Reflective Verse, Nonsense Verse, Poems and Places, Epigrams and Epitaphs . . . As a critic he often wielded a savage power through his magazine New Verse. And as a big beast on the literary scene of the early 1980s, Hermione Lee interviewed him on Channel 4. But since his death…

[pangeanews]

“Sapeva quando vivere e quando morire, mi torturò vederlo in miseria”: quando Wystan H. Auden chiese ad Hannah Arendt di sposarlo (e lei lo rifiutò)

Cinquant’anni fa accadono due cose decisive nella vita di Wystan H. Auden, uno dei poeti centrali – per opere, intensità saggistica e molteplice attitudine del verso – del secondo Novecento. Nel tardo agosto del 1969, in Svizzera, muore Erika Mann, la primogenita di Thomas. Nel 1935, Auden aveva accettato – su consiglio dell’amico amato Christopher Isherwood – di sposarla, per consentirle l’ottenimento del passaporto britannico e la conseguente fuga in UK. Era lesbica, Erika. In quello stesso anno, ripescando le lezioni del suo antico prof, J.R.R. Tolkien (era il 1926) e la passione per l’insularità islandese (ad esempio: Letters from Iceland, 1936), Auden traduce l’Edda poetica, il repertorio di miti medioevali, referto di re e spade e lupi e verbi, repertorio identitario di lassù. L’altra cosa decisiva è questa. Auden chiede ad Hannah Arendt di sposarlo. La Arendt ha grosso modo la sua età – 63 anni, quell’anno – qualche anno prima ha pubblicato il celebratissimo La banalità del male. La filosofa rifiuta il poeta. “Il poeta Wystan H. Auden, con cui Hannah era amica dalla fine degli anni cinquanta, andò nel suo appartamento e le fece una proposta di matrimonio. Hannah, ovviamente, gli disse di no, ma questo non la sollevò, perché presagiva che Auden avrebbe preso male questo rifiuto. Auden negli ultimi anni era decaduto da quell’elegante gentleman che era a un clochard trascurato ed era chiaramente disperato nel profondo. Dopo la risposta negativa di Hannah, Auden si ubriacò senza freni e Hannah dovette trascinarlo sull’ascensore. ‘Io odio la compassione’, scrisse Hannah allora a Mary McCarthy, ‘mi spaventa, da sempre, e credo di non aver mai conosciuto qualcuno che abbia provocato in me così tanta compassione’” (da Alois Prinz, Io Hannah Arendt, Donzelli, 1999). Nel 1972, per Faber, Auden pubblica l’ultimo libro di poesie, Epistle to a Godson; a Vienna, il 28 settembre del 1973, il poeta, dopo una lettura di poesie, muore, infarto. Poeta geniale (le Poesie scelte sono edite da Adelphi, 2016, ma sarebbe bello pubblicare come si deve, singolarmente, capolavori come L’età dell’ansia e Horae canonicae), il 12 gennaio del 1975 è narrato dalla Arendt in un lungo articolo, sul “New Yorker”, Remembering W. H. Auden (che proponiamo, parzialmente, nella versione di Andrea Bianchi). A fine anno, il 4 dicembre, morirà anche lei, Hannah. “Penso sempre a Wystan”, scrive, due giorni dopo la sua morta, ancora a Mary McCarthy, “e alla miseria della sua esistenza, e al fatto che mi sia rifiutata di prendermi cura di lui quando venne e pregò di essere protetto”. (d.b.)

***

Incontrai Auden tardi. Tardi sia per me che per lui. Eravamo entrambi in quell’istante nel quale la semplice e comprensiva intimità amicale che formiamo da giovani non ci è più disponibile: non resta abbastanza davanti a noi, né potremmo sperarlo, e quindi non condividiamo l’intimità. Perciò fummo eccellenti amici ma senza confidenze. Di più, in lui vi era una riserva che scoraggiava la familiarità – né da tedesca misi alla prova questo silenzio british. Piuttosto, lo rispettai lieta, quasi fosse la segretezza necessaria al grande poeta, uno che era riuscito a imporsi di non parlare in prosa, in modo sciatto e casuale, di cose sulle quali poteva discorrere in modo più soddisfacente tramite una concentrazione densa e poetica.

Sarà la reticenza la deformazione professionale del poeta? Nel caso di Auden questo sembrava verosimile perché molti dei suoi lavori, con totale semplicità, sorgono dalla parola parlata, dagli idiomi quotidiani – come “Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm.” [Deponi il tuo capo assonnato, amore mio, sul mio semplice braccio senza fede]. Questo genere di perfezione è molto rara; la troviamo nelle migliori poesie di Goethe e anche, decisamente, in quelle di Puskin, giacché la loro caratteristica è essere intraducibili. Simili poesie d’occasione sono slogate dall’originale e poi si dissolvono in una nuvoletta banale. Qui tutto dipende da “gesti fluenti che elevano i fatti dal prosaico al poetico” – un punto evidenziato dal critico Clive James nel saggio su Auden apparso sul numero del Dicembre 1973 di Commentary. Se questo stile fluente è raggiunto, siamo convinti magicamente che il linguaggio quotidiano sia latentemente poetico e, ammaestrati dallo sciamanesimo poetico, apriamo per bene le orecchie ai veri misteri della lingua. Anni fa Auden mi risultò intraducibile: fui convinta della sua grandezza. Tre traduttori tedeschi si erano dati da fare e avevano fatto stramazzare senza troppi scrupoli una delle mie poesie favorite, “If I could tell you”, la quale sorge in modo naturale da giri di frase colloquiali come “Time will tell” e “I told you so”:

Time will say nothing but I told you so. Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, There must be reasons why the leaves decay; Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Suppose the lions all get up and go, And all the brooks and soldiers run away; Will Time say nothing but I told you so? If I could tell you I would let you know.

[Il tempo non lo dirà, io te lo dicevo. / Solo il tempo sa il prezzo da pagare; / se lo sapessi te lo direi. // Se dovessimo piangere quando i clown si danno da fare, / se dovessimo inciampare quando suonano i musicisti, / il tempo non lo dirà, io te lo dicevo. // Il vento verrà pure da qualche parte se ora soffia qui, / ci saranno cause che fan gialle le foglie; / Il tempo non lo dirà, io te lo dicevo. // Ora pensa che i Leoni prendono e se ne vanno, / e tutti i ruscelli e soldati se ne fuggono; / il tempo non lo dirà, ma io? / Potessi dirtelo, lo sapresti]

Vederlo alla fine caduto in miseria, senza una giacca o un paio di scarpe di riserva, mi fece capire vagamente perché si nascondesse dietro il motto “Enumera le tue fortune”; pure, trovavo difficile capire appieno perché rimanesse in miseria senza riuscire a far nulla in quelle circostanze assurde che gli rendevano insopportabile quel che gli rimaneva da vivere. Era ragionevolmente famoso e una simile ambizione non contò mai troppo per lui perché era il meno vanesio tra gli autori che conoscevo – del tutto immune alle vulnerabilità infinite che sappiamo essere prodotte dalla gretta vanità. Non dico che fosse umile; nel suo caso era la confidenza con se stesso che lo proteggeva dagli adulatori e questa sua qualità esisteva prima di ogni riconoscimento e di ogni fama, prima addirittura di ogni successo.

*

Geoffrey Grigson, nel Times Literary Supplement, riporta questo dialogo tra il giovanissimo Auden e il suo relatore a Oxford. “Tutor: ‘E cosa farà, Mr. Aunde, quando lascerà l’università? Auden: ‘Farò il poeta.’ Tutor: ‘Bene, in questo caso troverà utile aver insegnato Inglese.’ Auden: ‘Non capisce. Farò il grande poeta’”. Questa confidenza non lo lasciò mai, ma non gli proveniva da confronti con gli altri o dal tagliare per primo il traguardo; era naturale, ben connessa, ma non identica, con la sua enorme abilità a trattare la lingua, e a farlo rapidamente, quando gli andava a genio. E poi non gli andava nemmeno a genio, perché non esibiva la perfezione finale, né vi aspirava. Sempre tornava alle sue vecchie poesie, d’accordo con Valéry quando dice che una poesia non è mai chiusa per sempre, ma solo abbandonata. In altre parole Auden era benedetto da quella rara confidenza in se stesso che non abbisogna di ammirazione e di buone opinioni altrui; e che può benissimo reggere l’autocritica senza cadere nel trabocchetto del dubbio perpetuo su se stessi. E la cosa spesso la confondiamo con l’arroganza: Auden non fu mai arrogante tranne quando qualche volgarità lo provocava; allora si proteggeva con i modi rudi e abbastanza improvvisi, tipici dell’inglese di razza. […]

*

Auden era più saggio di Brecht, ma non era sveglio quanto lui. Auden sapeva che “la poesia non fa accadere nulla”. Per lui era piena insensatezza che il poeta avocasse a sé speciali privilegi o chiedesse permessi che siamo felici di elargire in gratitudine a tutti. Nulla era maestoso in Auden quanto la sua integra sanità e la sua salda reputazione per la sanità; ai suoi occhi tutti i generi di follia erano assenza di disciplina – indecente, indecente usava dire. Il fatto principale era non avere illusioni, non accettare pensieri (tantomeno se sistematici) che ci chiudessero gli occhi davanti alla realtà. Auden rigettò le sue immature credenze leftist per gli eventi che sappiamo: processi a Mosca, patto Hitler-Stalin, esperienze di guerra civile spagnola. Furono gli eventi a mostrare tutta la sinistra come “disonesta e vergognosa”, come ebbe a scrivere introducendo Collected Shorter Poems. Così è chiaro per sempre da dove saltava fuori il suo:

History to the defeated may say alas but cannot help nor pardon.

[La storia agli sconfitti / sta bene se lo dite ma non giova né perdona.]

E questo equivaleva a dire che “quel che accade è tutto per il meglio”. Auden protestava di non aver mai creduto in questa pessima dottrina, anche se qui sono in dubbio perché quei versi sono troppo buoni, troppo precisi per essere stati prodotti dalla sola efficacia retorica; inoltre, Auden sarebbe stato l’unico a scostarsi dall’ottimismo dei leftist degli anni Venti e Trenta, se veramente avesse creduto alla poesia e non al senso di quello che scriveva. Comunque sia venne il tempo in cui

In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark . . .

Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face—

[Nell’incubo del buio / Tutta Europa latra . . . / Disgrazia di chi pensa / La noti su tutti i volti]

Ed era il momento in cui sembrava che il peggio sarebbe successo e il male fosse l’unico a cavarsela. Il patto Hitler-Stalin era la svolta da sinistra; ora andavano abbandonate tutte le fedi nella storia quale tribunale finale che giudica le sorti terrene.

Negli anni Quaranta furono in molti a rivoltarsi contro le loro credenze, ma lo fecero dopo Auden, e in ogni caso pochi capirono quel che fosse andato storto dentro il meccanismo fideistico. Ma costoro non smisero del tutto le loro devozioni nella storia e nel successo: semplicemente e di fatto, cambiarono treno. Il treno socialista e comunista era andato male, e presero il biglietto per un viaggio nelle terre del Capitale, dove trovarono Freud insieme a qualche truciolo marxista, un treno ben sofisticato insomma. All’opposto, Auden si fece cristiano e quindi lasciò pure lui il treno della storia. Non so se Stephen Spender abbia ragione a ribadire che la fede fosse la sua stringente necessità; suppongo che questa necessità fosse semplicemente scrivere versi e tutto sommato sono ragionevolmente certa che la sua sanità, il grande senso che illuminava tutta la sua prosa saggistica e di recensore sia debitore verso l’ortodossia e il suo scudo protettivo. […]

*

Certamente sembra poco probabile che il giovane Auden, quando decise di dover diventare un grande poeta, conoscesse il prezzo da pagare, e penso che verso la fine – quando la semplice forza fisica del cuore se ne svaniva e non gli faceva reggere le emozioni che comunque aveva il talento per trasformare in elogio – considerasse il prezzo come troppo caro. In ogni caso noi, i suoi lettori, possiamo solo essere grati che pagò fino all’ultimo centesimo per la gloria durevole della lingua inglese. E i suoi amici possono trovare qualche consolazione nello scherzo sublime che Auden tende loro dall’altra parte del mondo – per molte ragioni, il poeta confidò a Spender che “la sua anima saggia e incosciente scelse per conto suo il giorno ideale per andarsene”. La saggezza di sapere “quando vivere e quando morire” non è concessa ai mortali ma Wystan, siamo indotti a credere, potrebbe averla ricevuta quale suprema ricompensa, quella che gli dèi crudeli elargiscono al loro servitore più fedele.

Hannah Arendt

 *Traduzione italiana di Andrea Bianchi

**In copertina: “Wystan H. Auden: ritratto con sigaretta”, fotografia di Cecil Beaton

L'articolo “Sapeva quando vivere e quando morire, mi torturò vederlo in miseria”: quando Wystan H. Auden chiese ad Hannah Arendt di sposarlo (e lei lo rifiutò) proviene da Pangea.

from pangea.news http://bit.ly/2vCqga0

[ericsitalianlitblog]

Five Interesting Nonfiction Books

The first book is called, "Three Dreamers: A Memoir of Family" by Lorenzo Carcaterra, this book is about a man who speaks about three women in his life who helped shape him into who he is today. The first woman would be his grandmother and based on the online source (goodreads.com) I was able to gather a small amount of information based on what his nonna (grandmother) was like in his life. "Nonna Maria, his grandmother, gave him his first taste of a loving home during the summers he spent with her as a teenager on Ischia. With her kindness, her humor, and the same formidable strength she employed to make secret trips for food when the Nazis occupied Ischia during World War II, she instilled in him the importance of community, providing shelter for a boy whose home life was difficult." In some way I feel as if I can relate to Lorenzo because I too had mostly women in my life to raise and shape me into the person that I am now. I chose this book to be the first because of the relatability that binds within me.

The second book that I chose is called, "Tears of Salt" by Pietro Bartolo and Lidia Tilotta is about a doctor who has been caring for war refugees for over a century. I cited this information from (goodreads.com). To summarize this book I have taken an excerpt from (goodreads.com). "Situated more than one hundred miles off Italy’s southern coast, the rocky island of Lampedusa has hit world headlines in recent years as the first port of call for hundreds of thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees fleeing civil war and terrorism and hoping to make a new life in Europe. Dr. Pietro Bartolo, who runs the lone medical clinic on the island, has been caring for many of them—both the living and the dead—for a quarter century". The reason I chose this book is because I thought it might make for an interesting read.

The third book is just titled, "Venice" by Jan Morris. The reason I chose this as my third selection is because one of the first cities that I would like to visit is Venice. Based on the title I can infer that the book is about the city of Venice and the author, Jan Morris, describing her time there and what it was like. This is most likely a book that will try and hook the reader in based on the benefiting factors of Venice which include, the scenery, the food, and the first hand perspective and what it is like to live there. Based on the summary by Geoffrey Grigson, he describes the book as, "Entertaining, ironic, witty, high spirited and appreciative . . . Both melancholy and gay and worldly, I think of it now as among the best books on Venice; indeed as the best modern book about a city that I have ever read." I cited Geoffrey Grigson's quote from the site (goodreads.com)

The fourth book is called "Ciao America!" by Beppe Severginini, which is about an Italian man who visits America in Washington D.C. based on the cover itself and from the summaries I read on this book I could already tell that it would be a satirical/comedic piece of nonfiction. Based on the summary from the Hardcover edition, citied from (goodreads.com), they describe the book as a charming and laugh out loud tribute. "Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America’s signature manners and mores. Succumbing to his surroundings day by day, he and his wife find themselves developing a taste for Klondike bars and Samuel Adams beer, and even that most peculiar of American institutions -- the pancake house". The reason why I chose this as my fourth selection is because this could possibly be a good book for me to read if it can make me laugh.

The final book that I have chosen is called "Eternal City" by Ferdinand Addis who describes the history of Rome. The reason why this is the last book on my list is because I don't find historical books to be interesting at all but Rome also happens to be one of the cities I want to visit. "Ferdinand Addis addresses these questions by tracing the history of the "Eternal City" told through the dramatic key moments in its history: from the mythic founding of Rome in 753 BC, via such landmarks as the murder of Caesar in 44 BC, the coronation of Charlemagne in AD 800 and the reinvention of the imperial ideal, the painting of the Sistine chapel, the trial of Galileo, Mussolini's March on Rome of 1922, the release of Fellini's La Dolce Vita in 1960, and the Occupy riots of 2011." I cited this summary from (goodreads.com). I would like this book to be my very last choice due to the fact that it is pure history.

[the-paintrist]

Samuel Palmer RWS Hon.RE (Hon. Fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers) (27 January 1805 – 24 May 1881) was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.

Palmer was largely forgotten after his death. In 1909, many of his Shoreham works were destroyed by his surviving son Alfred Herbert Palmer, who burnt "a great quantity of father's handiwork ... Knowing that no one would be able to make head or tail of what I burnt; I wished to save it from a more humiliating fate". The destruction included "sketchbooks, notebooks, and original works, and lasted for days". It wasn't until 1926 that Palmer's rediscovery began through a show curated by Martin Hardie at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Drawings, Etchings and Woodcuts made by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake. But it took until the early 1950s for his reputation to recover, stimulated by Geoffrey Grigson's 280-page book Samuel Palmer (1947) and later by an exhibition of the Shoreham work in 1957 and by Grigson's 1960 selection of Palmer's writing. His reputation rests mainly on his Shoreham work, but some of his later work has recently received more appreciation.

The Shoreham work has had a powerful influence on many English artists after being rediscovered. Palmer was a notable influence on F. L. Griggs, Robin Tanner, Graham Sutherland, Paul Drury, Joseph Webb, Eric Ravilious, John Minton, the glass engraving of Laurence Whistler, and Clifford Harper. He also inspired a resurgence in twentieth-century landscape printmaking, which began amongst students at Goldsmiths' College in the 1920s. (See: Jolyon Drury, 2006)

In 2005 the British Museum collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to stage the first major retrospective of his work, timed to coincide with the bicentenary of Palmer's birth. The show ran from October 2005 to January 2006, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March – May 2006. The Fine Art Society, London, staged an exhibition in 2012, entitled "Samuel Palmer, His Friends and Followers", which focused on landscapes.

There are three commemorative plaques to Palmer. An unofficial blue plaque is located at Palmer's birthplace at Surrey Square. The Grade II listed Waterhouse, in Shoreham, Kent, has a plaque on it commemorating Palmer's residence there from 1827 to 1835. A Greater London Council blue plaque is located at 6 Douro Place, Kensington W8, marking that Palmer lived there from 1851 to 1861. His last home was The Chantry (the former Furze Hill Place), at Cronks Hill, near Redhill, which is Grade II listed for the Palmer connection.

The oldest house in Shoreham, Kent, is called Reed Beds, but is also known as the Samuel Palmer School of Fine Art. The National Portrait Gallery holds an 1829 portrait of Palmer by his friend George Richmond; the NPG's catalogue notes state that Palmer's expression and long hair recall Albrecht Dürer's 1500 self-portrait as Christ.

Palmer Close, a cul-de-sac in Redhill (built in the 1960’s) was named in his honour.

'A Hilly Scene'. Samuel Palmer. 1828.

[ampazourvskomodino]

Counterpoint. Volume Two, 1944, Cover design by Cecil Collins

Contains work by amongst others Mervyn Peake, John Craxton, Keith Vaughan, John Minton, Paul Nash, Ceri Ricgards, Leslie Hurry, Mary Kessel, Lucian Freud, Robert Colquhoun, Gerald Wilde and articles by Bernard Denvir, Robin Ironside, Geoffrey Grigson et al.

[alwaysalreadyangry]

these two brief entries in geoffrey grigson’s anthology the english year make me very happy. happy autumn everyone (in the northern hemisphere)

[briefninjastudent]

John Piper, CH (1903-92), British. Trained at Richmond School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Best known for his landscapes and idiosyncratic paintings of churches and stately homes, for his Shell Guides to the English countryside (in collaboration with Geoffrey Grigson and John Betjeman)), his stained glass work, etc etc.

Welsh Landscape (1950), oil on canvas (Wolverhampton Art Gallery).

[bookloversofbath]

Recollections: Mainly of Writers and Artists (Geoffrey Grigson)

Recollections: Mainly of Writers and Artists (Geoffrey Grigson)

Recollections: Mainly of Writers and Artists (Geoffrey Grigson) soon to be presented for sale on the fabulous BookLovers of Bath web site!

Published: London: Chatto & Windus, The Hogarth Press, 1984, Hardback in dust wrapper.

From the cover: For nearly fifty years now, Geoffrey Grigson has been a lively, controversial and entirely original presence on the English literary and artistic scene as a…

[vermiculated]

books 2017 so far

wow, tuv want to talk about why you haven’t kept a monthly book list? (because I am scared of my phone and also writing.) no. 

Reiffen's Choice - SC Butler

Flex- Ferrett Steinmetz

The Good Funeral - Thomas Long and Thomas Lynch

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley

The Portable Veblen - Elizabeth McKenzie

The Invaders - Karolina Waclawiak

Funny Boy - Shyam Selvadurai

Adaptation - Malinda Lo

The Dream of Enlightenment - Anthony Gottlieb

Central Station - Lavie Tidhar

Why Did I Ever - Mary Robison (vg)

Binti - Nnedi Okorafor (vg) 

The Book of Tea - Kazuko Okakura

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Unmentionable - Therese O'Neill

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage - Sydney Padua

IQ - Joe Ide

The Little Virtues - Natalia Ginzburg trans Dick Davis

The Hanging Tree - Ben Aaronovitch

Death's Door - Sandra Gilbert

Holy Anorexia - Rudolph Bell 

Hild - Nicola Griffith (vg)

Sum - David Eagleman

Secondhand Time - Svetlana Alexievich trans Bela Shayevich

Everything is Teeth - Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner

Water Dogs - Lewis Robinson (vg)

Selection Day - Aravind Adiga 

The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale

Nicotine - Gregor Hens trans Jen Calleja

Margaret the First - Danielle Dutton

Audition -  Ryu Murakami trans Ralph McCarthy

A Horse Walks into a Bar - David Grossman trans Jessica Cohen

Zakhor - Yosef Yerushalmi

Citizen - Claudia Rankine

Blitzed - Norman Ohler trans Shaun Whiteside

Exorcising Hitler - Frederick Taylor

Being A Beast - Charles Foster

The Open Fields - CS and CS Orwin 

Universal Harvester - John Darnielle

The Mistletoe Murder - PD James

The Radius of Us - Marie Marquardt

Something in Between - Melissa de la Cruz

The Apex Book of World SF 2- Lavie Tidhar ed

Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst

Traitor to the Throne - Alwyn Hamilton

Cinnamon and Gunpowder - Eli Brown

Pain - Javier Moscoso trans Sarah Thomas and Paul House 

Suicide in Victorian and Edwardian England - Olive Anderson

The Regional Office is Under Attack - Manuel Gonzalez

The Vanquished - Robert Gerwarth

There is No Good Card For This - Kelsey Crowe

Death, Religion and the Family in England - Ralph Houlbrooke

His Bloody Project - Graham McRae

Violence in Early Modern Europe - Julius R Ruff

Snowblind - Ragnar Jonasson trans Quentin Bates

Today Will Be Different - Maria Semple

Martin Luther - Lyndal Roper

The Young Richelieu - Elizabeth Marvick

History Is All You Left Me - Adam Silvera

Inheritance - Malinda Lo

Reality Is Not What It Seems - Carlo Rovelli trans Simon Cornell and Erica Segre

Long Hidden - Rose Fox and Daniel Jose Older

Sarah Canary - Karen Joy Fowler

Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein

Monstress - Marjorie Liu 

This Close to Happy - Daphne Merkin 

The Gin Closet - Leslie Jamison

Bilgewater - Jane Gardam (vg)

Colonial Spirits - Steven Grasse

Fragrant Harbor - John Lanchester

A Cup of Rage - Raduan Nassar trans Stefan Tobler

A Very Long Engagement - Sebastien Japrisot trans Linda Coverdale

A Long Finish - Michael Dibdin

Uncle Silas - Sheridan Le Fanu

Powers of Darkness - Bram Stoker trans Valdimar Asmundsson trans Hans Cornell de Roos

Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders

Huntress - Malinda Lo

The Night Battles - Carlo Ginzburg trans Anne and John Tedeschi

Season of Migration to the North - Tayeb Salih trans Denys Johnson-Davies

Life's Work - Willie Parker

The Mothers - Brit Bennett

We Are Okay - Nina LaCour

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland - Diana Wynne Jones

Time Travel - James Gleick

Questions of Travel - William Morris, ed Lavinia Greenlaw

Words on the Move - John McWhorter

Stories of Your Life - Ted Chiang

Teeth - Mary Otto

Teeth - Hannah Moskowitz

We The Animals - Justin Torres

Chronotherapeutics for Affective Disorders - Anna Wirz-Justice et al

Great Granny Webster - Caroline Blackwood

English, August - Upmanyu Chatterjee

The Abyss Surrounds Us - Emily Skrutskie 

Days Without End - Sebastian Barry

The Girl Before - JP Delaney

The Loving Husband - Christobel Kent

Half-Bad - Sally Green

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton

Mr. Bridge - Evan Carroll

Mrs. Bridge - Evan Carroll

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams

The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu trans Ken Liu

The Undoing Project - Michael Lewis 

Rest - Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

Plucked - Rebecca Herzing

The Outsiders - SE Hinton

Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

Mind Your Manors - Lucy Lethbridge

Blood in the Water - Heather Ann Thompson

Blood Rain - Michael Dibdin

The Dry - Jane Harper

History of Wolves - Emily Fridlund

See Under: Love - David Grossman trans Betsy Rosenberg

Spaceman of Bohemia - Jaroslav Kalfar

Sarong Party Girls - Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

The Rituals of Dinner - Margaret Visser

The Water Babies - Charles Kingsley

God's Perfect Child - Caroline Fraser

The Secret History of Wonder Woman - Jill Lepore

Otherbound - Connie Duyvis

Chronotherapy - Michael Terman and Ian McMahan

Emotionally Weird - Kate Atkinson (vg)

Bright Air Black - David Vann 

Out - Natuso Kirino trans Stephen Snyder

The Hero With A Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell

Dirty Snow - George Simenon trans Marc Romano and Louise Varese

Night Sky With Exit Wounds - Ocean Vuong

And Then You Die - Michael Dibdin 

Medusa - Michael Dibdin 

Saga - Brian Vaughn, Fiona Staples et al 

The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu trans Joel Martinsen

A Line Made By Walking - Sara Baume

My Life With Bob - Pamela Paul

Two Women of London - Emma Tennant

Stoner - John Williams

The Crest on the Silver - Geoffrey Grigson

Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan

Oranges - John McPhee

Shrinking Violets - Joe Moran 

The Invisibility Cloak - Ge Fei trans Caanan Morse

The Water Kingdom - Philip Ball

The Moviegoer - Walker Percy

The Paper Menagerie - Ken Liu

Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers, vol 1 - Arigon Starr, ed

The Happy Traveller - Jamie Kurtz

Century's End - Enki Bilal and Pierre Christin

Saga vol 2 - Brian Vaughn, Fiona Staples et al

The Little Drummer Girl - John Le Carre

The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth

Back to Bologna - Michal Dibdin

End Games - Michael Dibdin 

What If? - Randall Munroe 

Taft 2012 - Jason Heller 

Saga vol 3 - Brian Vaughn, Fiona Staples et al

Gentlemen and Amazons - Cynthia Eller 

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

God's Philosophers - James Hannam

Ravished - Amanda Quick

Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson

The Weapon Wizards - Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot

Death's End - Cixin Liu trans Ken Liu

Chemistry - Weike Wang (vg)

[englishmodernism]

An English Farmhouse John Piper His dust-jacket for Geoffrey Grigson's 1948 book on the essence and spirit of the English Farmhouse. It was inspired by Piper and Grigson's visits, examining the surface details of weathered buildings and their construction. The book fits neatly into the neoromantics and the New Excusions into English Landscape series that Max Parrish and Adprint also published. #neoromantic #johnpiper #landscape #dustwrapper #surfacepattern #adprint #geoffreygrigson #farmhoused @hilltopfarmgirl

[illusionnews-blog]

Disinformation in Sydenham Hill Woods

Brief documtentaton of untitled sound works by the sound art project Disinformation, exhibited in London’s most beautiful art space – Sydenham Hill Woods, 25-27 August 2007. Poor quality audio – headphones highly recommended. The “Upstaging Nature” event was curated and organised by John Deller and Helen Morse-Palmer for Lookout Post, in association with the London Wildlife Trust. Special thanks…