A final picture to round off the year, a very large view of the recent lunar eclipse by Chris Hetlage. Via NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Year: 2010
“Who is this who is coming?”
Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968).
He blew tentatively and stopped suddenly, startled and yet pleased at the note he had elicited. It had a quality of infinite distance in it, and, soft as it was, he somehow felt it must be audible for miles round. It was a sound, too, that seemed to have the power (which many scents possess) of forming pictures in the brain. He saw quite clearly for a moment a vision of a wide, dark expanse at night, with a fresh wind blowing, and in the midst a lonely figure—how employed, he could not tell. Perhaps he would have seen more had not the picture been broken by the sudden surge of a gust of wind against his casement, so sudden that it made him look up, just in time to see the white glint of a sea-bird’s wing somewhere outside the dark panes.
MR James, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.
One of the alleged highlights of this year’s Christmas television from the BBC was a new adaptation of an MR James ghost story, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad. The film starred John Hurt and came with the same truncated title, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, as was used for Jonathan Miller’s 1968 version, also a BBC production. The story title comes originally from a poem by Robert Burns. The new work was adapted by Neil Cross and directed by Andy de Emmony, and I describe it as an alleged highlight since I wasn’t impressed at all by the drama, the most recent attempt by the BBC to continue a generally creditable tradition of screening ghost stories at Christmas. Before I deal with my disgruntlement I’ll take the opportunity to point the way to some earlier derivations. (And if you don’t want the story spoiled, away and read it first.)
Wildeana 4
I could make these posts a lot more often since there’s seldom a week goes by when Oscar Wilde’s work or something from his life isn’t making the news somewhere. I forget now how I came across the Robert Hichens book but the Beardsley-derived cover design is the best I’ve seen for this title. The Green Carnation was first published in 1894 and is the notorious roman à clef whose lead characters, Esmé Amarinth and Lord Reginald Hastings, are based on Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas. Hichens paints the pair as very obvious inverts with none of the “is he or isn’t he?” subtlety that Wilde managed to sustain in public. For a scandalised London the book seemed to confirm what was already suspected about Wilde and Bosie’s relationship.
The cover art is credited to one John Parsons, an illustrator whose other work, if there is any, eludes the world’s search engines. This edition was published in 1949 by Unicorn Press and it’s something I’m tempted to buy as a companion for my Unicorn Press edition of Dorian Gray.
The following links are to recent articles spotted whilst looking for other things:
• Oscar Wilde, Classics Scholar. A review of The Women of Homer by Oscar Wilde, edited by Thomas Wright and Donald Mead.
• A new Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest has actor Brian Bedford playing Lady Bracknell.
• Buyers go Wilde for Oscar as short note to his friend sells for €1,500.
• Outsmarted: What Oscar Wilde could teach us about art criticism.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Oscar Wilde archive
• The book covers archive
The Snow Queen
Edmund Dulac.
Empty, vast, and cold were the halls of the Snow Queen. The flickering flame of the northern lights could be plainly seen, whether they rose high or low in the heavens, from every part of the castle. In the midst of its empty, endless hall of snow was a frozen lake, broken on its surface into a thousand forms; each piece resembled another, from being in itself perfect as a work of art, and in the centre of this lake sat the Snow Queen, when she was at home. She called the lake “The Mirror of Reason,” and said that it was the best, and indeed the only one in the world.
Here in Britain it may not be quite as cold as it was earlier in the month but the Snow Queen still has us in her thrall. Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale was published in 1845 and, like many of the writer’s stories, is a blend of the beguiling and irritating: beguiling for the traces of older folk tales in its trolls, their magic mirror, and the Snow Queen as an embodiment of the season; irritating for the Christian gloss which is layered over everything like a sugar-coating. In this respect it’s a lot like Christmas; religiose sentimentality papered over winter rituals that are older and darker than the celebrations we’re supposed to acknowledge.
Edmund Dulac.
Andersen’s story has been illustrated and filmed many times with varying success. The Internet Archive has several illustrated editions, the selections here being from two of the better ones. Edmund Dulac’s Stories from Hans Andersen (1911) is one of the shorter collections and features predominantly colour pictures while Dugald Stewart Walker’s Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen (1914) is one of the most heavily illustrated as well as having finer renderings of many stories. But not of the Snow Queen in her palace, Dulac beats everyone there.
Dugald Stewart Walker.
This description stood out from the second part of Andersen’s tale:
In winter all this pleasure came to an end, for the windows were sometimes quite frozen over. But then they would warm copper pennies on the stove, and hold the warm pennies against the frozen pane; there would be very soon a little round hole through which they could peep…
My sister and I had been reminiscing recently about growing up in the 1960s when central heating and double-glazing were a lot less common than they are today. This meant little or no heating in bedrooms, so very cold weather often meant the same frozen windows which Andersen describes. People in rural places will be familiar with this but it’s something I haven’t seen for years. When you’re a child it’s quite an excitement waking up to find that Jack Frost has paid a visit but these days I prefer a warm house.
As usual I’ll be away for a few days so the archive feature will be activated to summon posts from the past. Have a good one. And Gruß vom Krampus!
Dugald Stewart Walker.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Dugald Stewart Walker revisited
• More Arabian Nights
• The art of Dugald Stewart Walker, 1883–1937
Cardwell Higgins versus Harry Clarke
A Delightful Page in the Record of My Existence.
This picture popped up at Chateau Thombeau a few days ago and it’s also been circulating in Tumblr’s recursive labyrinth. The very obvious debt to Harry Clarke’s black-and-white style caught my attention, especially to the artist’s Poe illustrations with the reclining woman being a blatant swipe from one of the Pit and the Pendulum drawings.
The Pit and the Pendulum (1919) by Harry Clarke.
Searching around revealed that the artist responsible, Cardwell Higgins, produced a small series of similar pieces in the late 1920s. He then settled into a career as an illustrator for American magazines and advertising, working in a far more commercial style which isn’t really the kind of thing I get very excited over. Six drawings from the black-and-white series were published as a lthograph set in 1979. Some of the originals came up for sale recently which accounts for the surfacing of these copies.