Phantom-Wooer: The Thomas Lovell Beddoes Website

Alan Halsey’s The Ghost of a Skeleton Key has been added to the Criticism page of the website. The Ghost of a Skeleton Key presents a reading of Death’s Jest-Book’s alchemical and largely Paracelsian themes, arguing that its structure depends more upon an ‘as above so below’ schema than conventional narrative or plot. The argument draws on alchemical practice, mandrake lore, Erasmus Darwin’s poems, the anatomy debate, artificial creatures in fiction and political theory, the ‘last man’ in Romantic writing and Beddoes’ prefiguration of the Theatre of Cruelty.

Brief biographies of the editorial staff at Phantom-Wooer have been added to the Contact Us page of the website.

Rodney Stenning Edgecombe has just published a new article about Thomas Lovell Beddoes’ youthful poem, “The Comet.” The article appears in the April 2013 issue of The Keats-Shelley Review. For additional information about the article, including an abstract and ordering details, visit the Keats-Shelley Review website.

One of the world’s leading experts on Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Alan Halsey, presents an introduction to the great 19th century poet and dramatist, best known for his ‘Dithyrambic in the florid Gothic style’ Death’s Jest-Book.

The Meeting Room, Lancaster Library

Friday 19 October 1.00pm

Tickets: £4/£2

For additional information on Lancaster’s literary festival, visit http://www.litfest.org.

MoonCCat in France has created an extraordinary new video that includes a musical performance of “The Phantom-Wooer.” A link to the video is available from the Video page.

A microscope that possibly belonged to Thomas Lovell Beddoes or his cousin William Minton Beddoes is illustrated and discussed at Dr. Allan Wissner’s website devoted to antique microscopes:
http://www.antique-microscopes.com/photos/Schiek_microscope_137.htm.

Two new books about Thomas Lovell Beddoes have been published: Science, Politics, and Friendship in the Works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes (University of Delaware Press) by Ute Berns, and, for readers of French, Trois Excentriques Anglais (Belles Lettres) by Lucien d’Azay, which in addition to Beddoes profiles Aleister Crowley and John Gray. Both books are now available from online booksellers.

ReScript Books has just published a new edition of Thomas Lovell Beddoes’ The Ivory Gate, edited and with an introduction and notes by Alan Halsey.

This is the first separate edition of Beddoes’ later poetry in English, featuring the surviving fragments of The Ivory Gate (c.1837). The fragments are re-arranged from Donner’s 1935 Works, which has until now been the only complete collection. The other poems are presented in roughly chronological order and include unused passages from the later version of Death’s Jest-Book. The poems have also been freed from the intrusive titles supplied by previous editors. This edition attempts ‘to “see Beddoes plain”, to strip his later work (or what remains of it, surviving his own and others’ penchant for destruction) of any paraphernalia not of his own making: to present the poems and fragments as they might have appeared in one of his notebooks.’

106pp. isbn 978-1-874400-50-9. £9

The book can be ordered at

http://www.realitystreet.co.uk/rescript-books.php

& is also available from info@westhousebooks.co.uk.

Phantom-Wooer invites submissions of original articles, news announcements and other items. All manner of Beddoes-related material is welcome. Submissions may be circulated to editorial advisors for review prior to being accepted and posted on the website. Submissions should be sent to the website manager, Richard Geyer, at geyer@phantomwooer.org. Copyright remains with the creator.