— Howard Waldrop. H’ard Starts. The Early Waldrop. Edited by George R. R. Martin and Bradley Denton. [Subterranean Press, 2023]. Edition of 750 copies.
Collects nearly two dozen pieces described by Waldrop as “What I Wrote Before I Could Write” which is of course nonsense. “Lunchbox” was his first professional fiction sale, a Mars landing. “Onions, Charles Ives, and the Rock Novel” (an early piece written for Crawdaddy!), extrapolates from the posthumous production of Ives’ Fourth Symphony what would later become known as the “rock opera”. The four-part interview by Bradley Denton is great fun.
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— Margaret D. Stetz and Mark Samuels Lasner. Max Beerbohm: The Price of Celebrity. New York Public Library, 2023.
This handsome little book presents the exhibition labels for the Beerbohm show drawing on the NYPL collection, Lasner’s collection at the University of Delaware, and other lenders. The book (96 pp.) is rich and instructive, the exhibition is fabulous: Max’s drawing of the Devil proposing the bargain with Enoch Soames; a superb portrait of his wife Florence Kahn in six dancing poses like a Greek frieze; Rossetti’s courtship of Elizabeth Siddal; caricatures of Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, and the red-headed Aubrey Beardsley; and “Mr. Beerbohm reading Mrs. Woolf”, a little sketch of himself falling asleep, in perfect imitation of the Vanessa Bell cover for her sister’s book; and more. The effect is a dense studio style hanging of drawings in a tiny room, and it works.
Go see it : https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/max-beerbohm (through 28 January 2024)
The guide is available online: https://drupal.nypl.org/sites-drupal/default/files/2023-10/MaxBeerbohm_PrintedGuide.pdf
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— Kenneth W. Rendell. Safeguarding History. Trailblazing Adventures inside the Worlds of Collecting and Forging History. Foreword by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Whitman Publishing, [2023].
Memoir by the eminent autograph expert and bookman, from humble origins to international success. The accounts of uncovering forgeries are case studies of self-delusion by those who wanted to believe, and of Rendell’s clear thinking and basic skepticism. To read the book is to hear the author’s cadences and manner of speaking, very nicely done. The chapter on forming the library of Bill and Melinda Gates (and the logistics of its installation) is really something.
— John Howard and Mark Valentine. Possessions and Pursuits. Sarob Press, 2023.
Short novel by Howard, Fallen Sun, and two short stories by Mark Valentine, “Masque and Anti Masque” and “The Prospero Machine”. Third volume of tributes to the metaphysical novels of “Inkling” Charles Williams.
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— Maureen Kincaid Spiller. A Traveller in Time. The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Spiller. Edited and with an introduction by Nina Allan. [Foreword by Paul Kincaid]. Academia Lunare | Luna Press Publishing [i.e., POD printed in U.S.A., 8 September 2023].
An excellent memorial volume assembling essays and reviews from her website Paper Knife and from Strange Horizons (chiefly 2010-2022, with a handful of earlier pieces), arranged thematically. The section on British author Alan Garner is fascinating as it shows her thinking about his work over decades (the earliest is from 1987; and the most recent is the last piece she published, in 2022). From the preface: “It was this notion, I think, this sense that everything we read is part of an ongoing and unending exploration, that convinced her to start reviewing. It was certainly the guiding principle behind the criticism she did write.”
— Jean-Claude Izzo. Chourmo. Une enquête de Fabio Montale [1996]. Gallimard [Folio policier, 2022].
Marseille crime novel.
— Sarban. The Doll Maker and other tales of the uncanny. Peter Davies, [1953].
— Cyril Connolly. The Modern Movement. One Hundred Key Books from England, France and America 1880-1950. André Deutsch / Hamish Hamilton, [1965].
— Charles Renouvier. Uchronie (L’Utopie dans l’histoire). Esquisse historique apocryphe du développement de la civilisation européenne tel qu’il n’a pas été, qu’il aurait pu être. Bureau de Critique Philosophique, 1876.
— Alexander Ames and Mark Samuels Lasner. Grolier Club Bookplates Past & Present. With contributions by William E. Butler and Molly Dotson. Illustrated. The Grolier Club, 2023.
— Margaret D. Stetz. Aubrey Beardsley 150 Years Young. From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection. 44 illustrations, 69 items. 85 pp. Grolier Club, 2022. Excellent record of the fabulous, witty, and nimbly erudite descriptive labels from the Beardsley exhibition (8 September to 12 November 2022). The translation from Catullus illustrated above suggests that a classical education was not without its rewards. Not being a Latinist, your correspondent is glad that Beardsley could knock out such a poem.
