An Old Irish Miscellany: From Artistic Dress to Fairy Tales

Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ni Houlihan, by
Sir John Lavery
 

Lady Wilde:  "The Irish...love everything that is artistic-the fascinations of life, beauty of form, music, poetry, song, splendour, and noble pleasures.  Their kings in ancient times were elected for their personal beauty as much as for their chivalrous qualities. No man with a blemish or deformity was allowed to reign.  Then, their appreciation of intellect proved the value they set on the spiritual and ideal above the material and the brutal.  The poet ranked next to the princes of the land. His person was sacred in battle; he was endowed with an estate, so that his soul might be free from sordid cares; and his robe of many colours, and the golden circlet on his brow at the festivals, showed his claim and right to rank next to royalty, and to sit at the right hand of the king.  Poetry, learning, music oratory, heroism, and splendour of achievement-these were the true objects of homage and admiration amongst the ancient Irish.
There was nothing brutal in their ideal of life; no hideous images or revolting cruelties; and the beautiful and graceful Sidhe race, with their plaintive music and soft melancholy, and aspirations for a lost heaven, is the expression in a graceful and beautiful symbol of the instinctive tendencies of the Irish nature to all that is most divine in human intellect, and soft and tender in human emotion.

Ireland is a land of mists and mystic shadows; of cloud-wraiths on the purple mountains; of weird silences in the lonely hills, and fitful skies of deepest gloom alternating with gorgeous sunset splendours.  All the fantastic caprice of an ever-varying atmosphere stirs the imagination, and makes the Irish people strangely sensitive to spiritual influences.  They see visions and dream dreams, and are haunted at all times by an ever-present sense of the supernatural...They are made for worshippers, poets, artists, musicians, orators; to move the world by passion, not by logic. Scepticism will never take root in Ireland; infidelity is impossible to the people.  To believe fanatically, trust implicitly, hope infinitely, and perhaps to revenge implacably-these are the unchanging and ineradicable characteristics of Irish nature, of Celtic nature, we may say; for it has been the same throughout all history and all ages.  And it is these passionate qualities the make the Celt the great motive force of the world, ever striving against limitations towards some vision of ideal splendour; the restless centrifugal force of life, as opposed the centripetal, which is ever seeking a calm quiescent rest within its appointed sphere.
The very tendency to superstition, so marked in Irish nature, arises from an instinctive dislike to the narrow limitations of common sense.  It is characterized by a passionate yearning towards the vague, the mystic, the invisible, and the boundless infinite of the realms of imagination. ...the Irish love youth, beauty, splendour, lavish generosity, music and song, the feast and the dance. "


Riders of the Sidhe


 

The mid/late Victorian era was an extremely creative time in the artistic world.  There were many forms created and revived, from Medievalism to the Pre-Raphaelites, the Aesthetic Movement, etc...  One important movement in Ireland and Scotland that was related to the Arts & Crafts Movement was the Celtic Revival.  Suddenly artists and craftsmen were looking back to traditional, regional design and reviving and reworking them in a blaze of rich creativity, after so many years of the culture being repressed in every way.  From traditional crafts, to painting, literature, music, and theatre-this movement kept growing in the years that followed.

In 'The Oxford Book of Ireland', there is a delightful story recounted by Mary Colum in her book 'Life and the Dream', from 1928, of herself and her friends who adopted the theatrical artistic Irish dress, which went unappreciated by some of the locals...they just didn't understand these girls with their lovely noble tendencies!  I give them full credit for trying: 

"In decorating themselves in a traditional Irish manner, the female sex were not behindhand, especially the youthful members thereof.  It may be doubted, however, if the women's garment which really had been concocted from pictures was especially Irish:  it was probably simply the costume of the Medieval European lady with a few fancy Celtic fixtures attached.  A girl poet, friend of mine, Moirin Fox, never wore any other garb. She would appear in the Abbey in gorgeous purple and gold, a torc on her forehead, a Tara brooch fastening her brath, and various other accoutrements of the ancient Irish, including the inevitable amber.  The rest of us only occasionally appeared in Gaelic costume, which, of course, had to be Irish manufactured material.  For dressy wear I had a white garment with blue and green embroidery, a blue brath, copper brooches, and other archaeological adornments.  For more ordinary wear I had the Irish costume in blue green, a brath of the same colour with embroideries out of The Book Of Kells.  These, as I remember, were chiefly of snakes eating one another's tales.  With this went a blue stone necklace, a little silver harp fastening the brath, a silver Claddagh ring, and a silver snake bracelet which I'm afraid was early Victorian rather than early Celtic.  This getup was alright for the Abbey Theatre of Gaelic League dances, but once when myself and a friend, Siav Trench, in a similar getup and a more striking colour scheme, walked down a street where the fishwomen were selling their fish, we were openly derided.  The fishmongers called out, 'Will yez look at the Irishers trying to look like stained glass windows?  What is the country coming to at all, at all?  Them Irishers are going daft!'  We were not too sensitive to ridicule, but we did not again wear such garments in parts of the city where anything out of the ordinary was mocked at so vociferously." 


Illustration by Katherine Cameron, from 'Celtic Tales' by Louey Chisholm




 

Some centuries-old Irish verses, very lovely and expressing complete delight in nature:

The Hill of Howth
Delightful to be on the Hill of Howth, very sweet to be above its white sea; the perfect fertile hill, home of ships, the vine-grown pleasant warlike peak.
The peak where Finn and Fianna used to be, the peak where were drinking horns and cups, the peak where bold O'Duinn brought Grainne one day in stress of pursuit.
The peak bright-knolled beyond all hills, with its hill-top round and green and rugged; the hill full of swordsmen, full of wild garlic and trees, the many-coloured peak, full of beasts, wooded.
The peak that is loveliest throughout the land of Ireland, the bright peak above the sea of gulls, it is a hard step for me to leave it, lovely Hill of delightful Howth.      Irish 14th century

The Wayside Fountain
Cenn Escrach of the orchards, a dwelling for the meadow bees, there is a shining thicket in its midst, with a drinking-cup of wooden laths.

The Blackbird's Song
The little bird has given a whistle from the tip of its bright yellow beak; the blackbird from the yellow-tufted bough sends forth its call over Loch Loigh.

The Hermit Blackbird
Ah, blackbird, it is well for you where your nest is in the bushes; a hermit that clangs no bell, sweet, soft, and peaceful is your call.

The Spring
Spring of Traigh Dha Bhan, lovely is your pure-topped cress; since your crop has become neglected your brook-lime is not allowed to grow.
Your trout out from your banks, your wild swine in your wilderness; the stags of your fine hunting crag, your dappled red-breasted fawns.
Your nuts on the crest of your trees, your fish in the waters of your stream; lovely is the colour of our springs of arum lily, green brook in the wooded hollow...

Sliabh gCua
Sliabh gCua, haunt of wolves, rugged and dark, the wind wails about its glens, wolves howl around its chasms' the fierce brown deer bells in autumn around it, the crane screams over its crags.

The Storm
Cold is the night in the Great Moor, the rain pours down, no trifle; a roar in which the clean wind rejoices howls over the sheltering wood.

Flood-tide
Look before you to the north-east at the glorious sea, home of creatures, dwelling of seals; wanton and splendid, it has taken on flood-tide.

There is a great wealth and treasure of folk legends and fairy tales from Ireland.  W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory laboured intensely at gathering material in this area and re-telling these imaginative tales; and so did Lady Francesca Speranza Wilde, Oscar Wilde's equally eccentric mother, of whom I relayed some of her observations of the Irish at the beginning of this blog.

In Irish fairy tales, the fairies were not pretty little creatures of a generally kindly disposition, they were tricky and easily offended, and having a darker and more sinister nature, and were not to be crossed.

'A Donegal Fairy' by Leticia Maclintock:
"Ay, it's a bad thing to displeasure the gentry, sure enough-they can be unfriendly if they're angered, an' they can be the very best o' gude neighbours if they're treated kindly.  My mother's sisterwas her lone in the house one day, wi' a big pot o' water boiling on the fire, and ane o' the wee folk fell down the chimney, and slipped wi' his leg in the hot water.  He let a terrible squeal out o' him, an; in a minute the house was full o' wee crathurs pulling him out o' the pot, an' carrying him across the floor.  "Did she scald you?" my aunt heard them saying to him.  "Na, na, it was mysel' scalded my ainsel', quoth the wee fellow. "A weel, a weel," says they, "If it was your ainsel' scalded yoursel', we'll say nothing, but if she has scalded you, we'd ha' made her pay."

'The Dance', Robin Flower, Poems and Translations, 1931:

On the white wall flickered the sputtering lamp
And lit the shadowy kitchen, the sanded floor,
The girls by the painted dresser, the dripping men
Late from the sea and huddled,
These on the settle, those by the table; the turf
Sent up faint smoke, and faint in the chimney a light
From the frost-fed stars trembled and died and trembled again in the smoke.
'Rise up now, Shane', said a voice, and another:
'Kate, stand out on the floor'; the girls to the men
Cried challenge on challenge; a lilt in the corner rose
And climbed and wavered and fell, and springing again
Called to the heavy feet of the men; the girls wild-eyed,
Their bare feet beating the measure, their loose hair flying,
Danced to the shuttle of lilted music weaving
Into a measure the light and the heavy foot.

One of my all-time favourite television series adapted from the humorous Somerville & Ross Irish R.M. books:

 

 

Stories For Christmas by Alison Uttley

This collection of twelve fantastical stories is my current selection for Christmas reading.  My copy is a vintage Puffin edition from 1977, with beautiful cover art by Gavin Rowe. It is an utterly charming and cosy book where unexpected, magical and beautiful things happen for Christmas; and kindness abounds. Trees can think and talk, dolls come to life and make festive preparations, and animals carry on and prepare for the festivities as if they were humans.  It is one of the loveliest Christmas books I've read, and one of the sweetest books I've ever encountered.  Even though the stories were originally intended for younger readers, they are so delightful that people of any age should read this, to bring back a touch of simple childhood innocence and unlimited imagination.  Merry Christmas!

'Blazing log fires, mince pies, red holly berries and the peal of church bells ringing out over snow-covered fields:  the twelve stories in this collection capture all the warmth and fun of Christmas as celebrated in the traditional country way that Alison Uttley knew and loved when she was a child.'

The Woeful World of Wuthering Heights

 

 

I saw a very interesting blog about Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' today  https://stewartstaffordblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/wuthering-heights-its-influence-on-vampire-and-popular-culture/  and it brought back my feelings when reading this story about eight years ago. It's a great book, but not one I enjoyed, it was more an experience of getting pulled in and absorbed by its strange, dark, moody, tragic, passionate, and dramatic world.   It haunted me continually during the week I read it, even encroaching into my dreams. If I'd had a wild, windy moor to forlornly wander onto (donning a flowing cape), I would have done so.

 "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath...I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind...as my own being".

"And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult...Merely, the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes!... This time I remembered I was lying in the oak closet and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir-bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause:  but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement...'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch:  instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!  The intense horror of nightmare came over me; I tried to draw back my arm, but, the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, Let me in-let me in!"

Charlotte Bronte wrote that: "Wuthering Heights was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary moor...with time and labour the crag took human shape, and there it stands colossal".

http://the-toast.net/2016/03/22/every-meal-in-wuthering-heights-ranked-in-order-of-sadness/

 

 

The Intriguing Bookish Beginning of 'Postern of Fate' by Agatha Christie

'Postern of Fate' by Agatha Christie, from 1973, is not considered one of her best stories.  It is one of her last books, and the last one with Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, who are getting on in years by this time. In fact, the writing is rather poor at the start of the book, and one wonders if she intentionally used such poor dialogue and excessive repetitiveness to express a decrease in mental faculties for characters no longer young?   Or was she sadly not writing as well as before?  Who knows?  Despite that,  I've always liked this book and have read it several times; not sure if I can even explain why, but there is an atmosphere to it that appeals to me. 

In the beginning of the story, the Beresfords had just moved into an old house in the country, or rather a village (a theme that always appeals), and the adventure begins gently with attempts to sort through and arrange masses of books.  Along with their own books, Tommy and Tuppence also acquired many old books from the previous owners, and ones that had apparently been in the house for many years before that.  

Now this is my favourite part:  Whilst going through and trying to organise all those books, Tuppence gets consumed with browsing through and reminiscing about wonderful books she'd read in childhood.  A wonderful array of tantalizing titles are mentioned:

Mrs. Thomas Beresford replaced The Cuckoo Clock, by Mrs. Molesworth, choosing a vacant place on the third shelf from the bottom.  The Mrs. Molesworths were congregated here together.  Tuppence drew out The Tapestry Room and held it thoughtfully in her fingers.  Or she might read Four Winds Farm.

She removed  some more books.  Three-quarters of an hour passed with her absorbed first in Alice Through the Looking-Glass, then with Charlotte Yonge's Unknown to History.  Her hands lingered over the fat shabbiness of The Daisy Chain.

Albert mounted on a chair and banging each book in turn to dislodge such dust as it had managed to gather on it, handed things down.  Tuppence received them with a good deal of rapture.
"Oh, fancy!  All these.  I really have forgotten a lot of these.  Oh, here's The Amulet and here's The Psamayad (Psammead).  Here's The New Treasure Seekers.  Oh, I love all those.  No, don't put them on shelves yet, Albert.  I think I'll have to read them first.  Well, I mean, one or two of them first, perhaps.  Now, what's this one?  Let me see.  The Red Cockade.  Oh yes, that was one of the historical ones.  That was very exciting.  And there's Under the Red Robe, too.  Lots of Stanley Weyman.  Lots and lots.  Of course I used to read those when I was about ten or eleven... The Prisoner of Zenda.  One's first introduction, really, to the romantic novel.  The romance of Princess Flavia.  The King of Ruritania.  Rudolph Rassendyll, some name like that, whom one dreamt of at night."

Albert handed down another selection.   (Then mention is made of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Catriona, and The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson).

"The Black Arrow.  I declare!  The Black Arrow!  Now that's one of the first books really I ever got hold of and read...Now let me think...The Black Arrow.  Yes, of course, it was that picture on the wall with eyes-real eyes-looking through the eyes of the picture.  It was splendid.  So frightening, just that....It was all about-oh yes, the cat and dog?  No.  The cat, the rat and Lovell, the dog.  Rule all England under the hog..."  She sat down in the chair, took The Black Arrow, opened the pages and engrossed herself.  "Oh dear," she said, "how wonderful this is.  I've really forgotten it quite enough to enjoy reading it all over again.  It was so exciting." 

'The Black Arrow' is a great book indeed, and in the midst of reading it, Tuppence finds a mysterious code and message within the pages, and thus begins the mystery story. 

The Ghost of Down Hill by Edgar Wallace

This is a rather rare edition of this story, which I found for next to nothing in a secondhand book shop many years ago.  Even more unusual is that it still had the dust jacket, though in a somewhat fragile state. Here is the rather spooky passage that is illustrated in the book jacket art:


'The Ghost of Down Hill' by Edgar Wallace, 1929:

 "She undressed and sat in her kimono by the open window looking over the garden. It was the third quarter of the moon and it was rising as she looked out upon that most wonderful of landscapes. The snowy expanse of the Downs lay in blue shadow and the moonlight flooded the broad white Weald with an uncanny radiance. She sighed happily, switched off the light and snuggled into bed. The strangeness of the room and , perhaps, the queer smell which all new furniture has, prevented her sleeping as soundly as she expected. 

 She turned from side to side, dozing fitfully, and then she heard the faint sound of a foot on the gravel path outside. From the position of the patch of moonlight on the floor she knew it must be very late and wondered if her uncle was in the habit of taking midnight strolls on such a freezing night. Slipping out of bed she pulled on her dressing-gown, walked to the window, and looked out. And then her blood froze, and her knees gave under her, for there in the middle of the garden path, standing out against the snowy background, was a figure in the sombre habit of a monk! The cowl was drawn over his head and the face was invisible.
 
It stood there motionless, its hands concealed in its wide sleeves, its head bent as in thought. Then slowly the head turned and the moonlight fell upon the bony face, the hollow sockets of its eyes, the white gleam of its fleshless teeth.
For a moment she stared, paralysed, incapable of sound or movement; and then she found her voice, and with a shrill scream collapsed on the floor in a dead faint".

The Poets On Winter- George Mackay Brown

Looking through some books, there was a bookmark on this little piece by the late Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown, from 1987:

The Poets On Winter:
'As the the day lengthens the caald strengthens', the old folk used to say, drawing on a great hoard of folk memory. It's true enough. Looking back over many years, January seems always to be the month to be feared, with claws and teeth of ice. It is the month when Robert Burns was born- "Twas then a blast o' Janwar' win' .../ Blew hansel in on Robin'... There is a dark rich magic in this time of year that Burns loved and exploited to the full. It's impossible to imagine his greatest poem, 'Tam o' Shanter', in a summer setting: a storm, with darkness, was essential.
His cantata, 'The Jolly Beggars', is a winter-time extravaganza. He weaves his magic about a winter-evicted mouse. 'The Cottar's Saturday Night'-that pious pastoral- falls in winter-time, when hearts and hearth-stone burn more brightly. Many of his lyrics too, are stoked to winter ardour- 'Oh, wert thou in the cold blast...' Does not the whole world sing 'Auld Lang Syne' at New Year? - though nearly always they get the words wrong.

It may be that high summer is too obviously 'practical' -with abundance of flowers, birdsong, fleeces, honey, sunshine - and poets like a thin soil to work in, so that the beauties of art can vie with the overflowing riches of nature.
The coldness and cruelty of nature is in one of Keats's greatest poems, 'The Eve of Saint Agnes'. He makes a marvellous distillation from the bitter wind, the shivering sheep, the frozen breath of the bedesman that was 'like pious incense from a censer old'.
Possibly the joy of winter for artists is the knowledge that the seed is lying under the snow, with all of summer's abundance locked in it. The waiting and the longing are more wonderful that the consumation.
'Twelfth Night'- that is, January the sixth- Shakespeare called one of the happiest of his plays. Another he titled 'The Winter's Tale': a title to enchant any audience, because it is at the time of darkness and snow that people draw in to the fireside to listen to the old men's stories. Even nowadays, I suppose, TV has more viewers than on lingering rose-scented evenings.
George Mackay Brown.

Paintings one and three by John Arthur Malcolm Aldridge; middle painting by James McIntosh Patrick, 'Winter In Angus'.

A Christmas Scene From 'Sir Gawain And The Green Knight'

This king lay at Camelot one Christmastide
With many mighty lords, manly liegemen,
Members rightly reckoned of the Round Table,
In splendid celebration, seemly and carefree.
There tussling in tournament time and again
Jousted in jollity these gentle knights,
Then in court carnival sang catches and danced;
For fifteen days the feasting there was full in like measure
With all the meat and merry-making men could devise,
Gladly ringing glee, glorious to hear,
A noble din by day, dancing at night!
All was happiness in the height in halls and chambers
For lords and their ladies, delectable joy...

Then the first course came in with such cracking of trumpets,
(Whence bright bedecked blazons in banners hung)
Such din of drumming and a deal of fine piping,
Such wild warbles whelming and echoing
That hearts were uplifted high at the strains.
Then delicacies and dainties were delivered to the guests,
Fresh food in foison, such freight of full dishes
That space was scarce at the social tables
For the several soups set before them in silver on the cloth.
Each feaster made free with the fare,
Took lightly and nothing loth;
Twelve plates were for every pair,
Good beer and bright wine both.


Wishing a Merry Christmas to all!

Joan Aiken's 'A Small Pinch of Weather and Other Stories'

Joan Aiken's 'A Small Pinch of Weather and Other Stories' is a book I finished reading last week, and it is completely wonderful and utterly entertaining.  Joan Aiken is one of my favourite authors (having over 100 books published) and she possessed an incredible imagination.  I've read various books and collections of stories for years (but have a long way to go to reading everything) but this particular collection of stories may be the most fascinating read so far.  This is pure escapism, and we have magic and fantasy as a part of normal life in these tales, they definitely take one away from the mundane.

This collection was first published in 1969, and my copy shown is a 1977 Puffin Books edition, with very eye-catching cover art.

A few of the stories concern the Armitage family, and these are a lot of fun to read.  There is a new book available of all the Armitage family stories in one volume, 'The Serial Garden,' which I felt compelled to order and am awaiting its arrival.   Here is bit from the story 'Broomsticks and Sardines', where Mark and Harriet's (the Armitage children) schoolteacher has been teaching her class some very strange things of a magical nature, which they are putting to use: 

"Mr Armitage, in his study, could hear raucous shouts and recriminations going on between Mark and Harriet and the Shepherd children, ancient enemies of theirs in the garden on the other side...  'Will you stop that hideous row,' exclaimed Mr Armitage, bursting out of his french window.  A deathly hush fell in the garden.  He realized almost at once, though, that the silence was due not so much to his intervention, as the fact that where little Richard, Geoffrey, and Moira Shepherd had been, there were now three sheep, which Harriet and Mark were regarding with triumphant satisfaction.
'Did you do that?' said Mr Armitage sharply to his children. 
'Well -yes.'
'Change them back at once.'
'We don't know how.'
'Geoffrey - Moira - your mother says it's bed-time.'  Mr Shepherd came out of his greenhouse with a pair of secateurs. 
'I say, Shepherd, I'm terribly sorry - my children have changed yours into sheep.  And now they say they don't know how to change them back.'
'Oh, don't apologize, old chap.  As a matter of fact I think it's a pretty good show.  Some peace and quiet will be a wonderful change, and I shan't have to mow the lawn.'  He shouted indoors with the liveliest pleasure,
'I say, Minnie!  Our kids have been turned into sheep, so you won't have to put them to bed.  Dig out a long frock and we'll go to the Harvest Ball.'
A shriek of delight greeted his words."


The titles of these short stories are delightful too, you just know you are in for something interesting:
A Small Pinch of Weather
Broomsticks and Sardines
The Boy Who Read Aloud
The Land of Trees and Heroes
The Cost of Night
The Stolen Quince Tree
Smoke From Cromwell's Time
The Apple of Trouble
The Lilac in the Lake
Harriet's Hairloom
A Leg Full of Rubies
The Serial Garden

Here is the description of this collection at the beginning of the book:

"You will find a small pinch of weather and more than a pinch of a thousand other things in this book of short stories by Joan Aiken, who is one of the most truly original and versatile writers for children today.  Here are funny stories-about the school where Harriet and Mark Armitage learned spells instead of ordinary lessons-and sad, romantic, magic tales about a king who lost all the darkness in his land, the beautiful lost princess Freylinde, a sinister story about a phoenix and a leg full of rubies, and a fascinating story about Mark and the wonderful garden he built from cereal packets.  Not to mention the story the book is named after.
All in all, this is about the most unexpected, out-of-the-ordinary books of short stories you can imagine.  The sad stories are spiced with wit and the funny ones tinged with sadness, but the one certain thing is that you will never feel too sure what will happen next."

Joan Aiken wrote books for adults and well as children, but as with the best writers, the children's books can appeal just as much to adults, and they possess humour that appeals to all ages.  I will be bold and say that you should have this book, particularly if you like beguiling tales by authors with boundless imaginations, and I doubt that anyone has/had a more vivid imagination than Joan Aiken, she really was amazing. 

http://joanaiken.com/

London In Books

 

 

 

 

 

London has a history of being one of the most interesting and culturally rich cities in the world, though sadly it is not the place it once was, and my interest in it lies in its past.   Along with the numerous museums, it still has a goodly amount of history to be seen, despite the incessant destruction of the past by so many "progressive" types, who would love to demolish the handsome buildings still mercifully left standing and turn this great city into a place of ghastly skyscrapers and car parks.   This is something I've thought about quite a bit recently, after reading the fight against such a thing on the excellent 'Spitalfields Life' blog and elsewhere.  It seemed a coincidence when recently going into the nearby secondhand bookshop (that had nothing of interest on the previous visit) that there were some books on London that seemed to be waiting just for me, and I left with these four:

 
 

These are excellent books with superb photography (and they were a great deal, as I traded in some unwanted ones as well)  and fine additions to other London books already had.  Here are a few of them:

 
 
 


There are also fiction books set in London, including some recent British Library Crime Classics and  other vintage mysteries.  

 

Gilbert and Sullivan: The Savoy Operas

If you fancy reading something amusing, frivolous, and entertaining; something that will take you away from the tatty and mundane entertainments of the 21st century, then here is an antidote to those dull, unimaginative ways of passing the book- perusing time.  This attractive Penguin Classics edition contains the complete librettos written by W.S. Gilbert, and it is quite a thick and substantial tome (with a profusion of historical notes).  There is enough here to keep you busy reading for some time, and of course, it is likely to send you hunting out the music as well.  This is often viewed as light-weight material. Yes, there is much silliness and ridiculously shallow and fickle characters, but there is also more going on in these tremendously witty Victorian comic operas than is often realised; and that makes them very interesting.  Here is the description on the back of the book:

"Life's a pudding full of plums:

Together, librettist W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan created some of the best-loved musical works in the world, with a finely honed yet anarchic sensibility that found its expression in upturned logic and extravagant wordplay.  This collection brings together all of their operatic collaborations, from their first joint venture, Thespis, the music of which is now largely lost, to the triumphant comic romps of The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, to less frequently performed gems such as the fanciful The Sorcerer and the acerbic lampoon Patience.  The fourteen Savoy Operas show Gilbert as a great poet and well as a humourist, and illustrations from his Bab Ballads reveal an entertaining comic artist.  The introduction by Mike Leigh explores the often conflicting characters of the two men, and the style, techniques and impact of the operas."

This is particularly timely, as Mike Leigh is in the midst of his production of The Pirates of Penzance at the English National Opera, and there is also a wonderful new music project that I will be focussing on here as well, in the next instalment.
I particularly enjoyed reading 'The Pirates of Penzance' (and how incredibly brilliant 'I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General' is!), 'Patience', and 'The Gondoliers'. 

The G&S operas are:    

Thespis
Trial By Jury
The Sorcerer
HMS Pinafore
The Pirates Of Penzance
Patience
Iolanthe
Princess Ida
The Mikado
Ruddigore
The Yeoman Of The Guard
The Gondoliers
Utopia Limited
The Grand Duke

This blog could be very lengthy, with quotes from every opera, but we will just look at a few examples. In 'Patience', we have a satirical take on Oscar Wilde, or possibly Swinburne (in Reginald Bunthorne, the soppy poet), the Aesthetic Movement, and The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  In 'Am I Alone', Bunthorne hypocritically declares:

Am I alone, and unobserved? I am                                               

Then let me own I'm an aesthetic sham!
This air severe is but a mere Veneer!
This cynic smile is but a wile of guile!
This costume chaste is but good taste Misplaced!
Let me confess!
A languid love for lilies does not blight me!
Lank limbs and haggard cheeks do not delight me!
I do not care for dirty greens by any means.
I do not long for all one sees that's Japanese.
I am not fond of uttering platitudes
In stained-glass attitudes.
In short, my mediaevalism's affectation,
Born of a morbid love of admiration!

There are also some Dragoons who, out of frustration to attract the attention of the females, decide to pretend to adopt the excessively poetic attitude to impress the girls, who have become smitten by the poetic aesthetes. They attempt to put on an act, as in this song (which is sung with much attitude and posing):

It's clear that mediaeval art alone retains its zest,
To charm and please its devotees we've done our little best.
We're not quite sure if all we do has the Early English ring;
But, as far as we can judge, it's something like this sort of thing:
You hold yourself like this,
You hold yourself like that,
By hook and crook you try to look both angular and flat.
We venture to expect
That what we recollect,
Though but a part of true High Art, will have its due effect.

If this is not exactly right, we hope you won't upbraid;
You can't get high Aesthetic tastes, like trousers, ready made.
True views on Mediaevalism Time alone will bring,
But, as far as we can judge, it's something like this sort of thing:
You hold yourself like this,
You hold yourself like that,
By hook and crook you try to look both angular and flat.
To cultivate the trim
Rigidity of limb;
You ought to get a Marionette, and form your style on him.

 

 

The madness of 'The Mikado':

Our great Mikado, virtuous man,
When he to rule our land began,
Resolved to try
A plan whereby
Young men might best be steadied.
So he decreed, in words succinct,
That all who flirted, leered or winked
(Unless connubially linked),
Should forthwith be beheaded.

From 'The Sorcerer':
Oh! My name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses and ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches and knells.
If you want a proud foe to 'make tracks'-
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax-
You've but to look in on our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!
We've a first class assortment of magic;
And for raising a posthumous shade
With effects that are comic or tragic,
There's no cheaper house in the trade.
Love-philtre- we've quantities of it;
And for knowledge if any one burns,
We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns:

For he can prophesy
With a wink of his eye,
Peep with security into futurity,
Sum up your history,
Clear up a mystery,
Humour proclivity
For a nativity- for a nativity;
With mirrors so magical,
Tetrapods tragical,
Bogies spectacular,
Answers oracular,
Facts astronomical,
Solemn or comical,
And, if you want it, he
Makes a reduction on taking a quantity...



Here are some other excellent books on Gilbert and Sullivan that I found a few months ago

From the description of 'Gilbert and Sullivan, Lost Chords and Discords':   "The Gilbert and Sullivan operas were a phenomena in their own time and have lost none of their immense popularity since...the first opera was produced...in 1875.  But behind the triumph of successive first nights lay a stormy partnership between two Victorian giants, whose conflicting aspirations often came close to wrecking the collaboration. In a sparkling and witty biography, Caryl Brahms contrasts the lives and characters of the two gifted men:  The quarrelsome but kindhearted Gilbert, mocking with tongue and pen the follies of the era, and the gentle, charming Sullivan, revelling in the life of high society but resentful that his comic operas won more fame than his oratorios.  For although it was the Savoy operas which made their fortune, both Gilbert and Sullivan thought themselves overshadowed by the other and believed that their best work had been achieved alone.  Only the clever management of the wily impresario, D'Oyly Carte, held them together for twenty-five years and fourteen operas."  This book also is full of gorgeous original illustrations, though it seems this book is rather looked on with disdain by some for inaccuracies and embroidering of the truth, but as I'm no expert I couldn't say.

The middle book is a fascinating feast of images, packed full of photographs and illustrations from the posters, programmes, costume designs, etc...over the years, a lavish scrapbook.

In 'Gilbert and Sullivan's London':  "By moving in and around London, backwards and forwards in time, Andrew Goodman unfolds the story of the most astonishing partnership in the history of British musical entertainments against the authentic background of the era in which it flourished.  With much original research and many hitherto unpublished illustrations, Andrew Goodman makes an invaluable contribution to our knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Gilbert and Sullivan in this handsome volume, which is already a classic of its kind.  The book summons up a bygone era in a predominately celebratory tone, recalling the lost grandeur of the city's great entertainment palaces, its atmospheric streetlife and nightlife, its splendour and its squalor." 

One could continue on sharing clever verse after clever verse (my book has many bookmarks in it), but perhaps you will be tempted to seek this out for yourself.  I definitely recommend it.  As for the music, it is lovely, though I haven't fully explored it all yet- dipping into it here and there, though some of the operatic singing can be a bit much in places if, like me, you aren't used to it.

*More books have followed the ones above since this was posted!