Books Currently Available
|
A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE LAKE DISTRICT
Walk and Drive to Inspiring Places - the famous and the little-known
£10.95 from Sigma Leisure. 350 pp., maps, illustrations.
ISBN: 1 85085 821 X
A complete guide to the Lake District's literary connections from earliest times to the present day, illustrated and arranged in five easy-to-follow routes for walkers and drivers, covering rthe National Park and Cumbrian coast.
Recognised as a classic when it first appeared, the book won the Lakeland Book of the Year Award in 1994 and has now been fully revised and updated.
This is one of the most thorough and readable guides to the Lake District, and deals not only with places written about, or lived in, by the expected figures like Wordsworth, Coleridge and Beatrix Potter, but with the Lakeland writing and exploits of Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence, W.H. Auden and Tennyson, Sarah Hall, Elizabeth Gaskell, E.M. Forster and a host of others.
What the reviewers said:
'For those who know the area well, the book will be a treat. For those who have never set foot there, Lindop provides a book-lover's feast.' - Melvyn Bragg, Sunday Times.
'Deserves to be a classic of its kind...with it safely in your backpack and the summer air on your shoulders, following in Lindop's footsteps is highly recommended.' - Philip Hamer, City Life.
'The book is a joy and will be my constant companion from now on - what more can one say?' Angela Locke, Cumbria.
'Lindop's comprehensive coverage means that nothing is missed - and minor references galore add sparkle and diversity to a rewarding tour...His exhilarating portrait of literary Lakeland, meticulous in its detail, all-embracing in its investigation, adds a new dimension to travel in the Lake District.' - Lakescene.
'Packed with enjoyable stories and excellent pictures, all compiled from the amazing knowledge that Lindop seems to possess of every square inch of the Lake District.' - Gerald Kaufman, Manchester Evening News.
|
|
SELECTED POEMS
Published in 2000 by Carcanet Press
£9.95 117 pp. paperback.
ISBN: 1 85754 465 X
A generous selection that brings together in one volume the best from thirty years of poetry, chosen from five previous books and pamphlets (Against the Sea (1970), Fools' Paradise (1977), Moon's Palette (1984), Tourists (1987) and A Prismatic Toy (1991)).
As R.V. Bailey wrote, reviewing this book in THE NORTH:
'Grevel Lindop has been writing for thirty years now…His absence from all the questionable attempts to anthologise the last thirty years of English poetry is perhaps accounted for by the fact that he doesn't conveniently illustrate any particular trend or movement, doesn't fit neatly into any poetic "generation". He doesn't seem to care a bit about this, or about the fatuity of fame in the poetry world - just goes on writing his carefully crafted, often searching, probably durable, traditional poems…
'You can't pin him down neatly. He has his own very clear voice. He is a strongly visual poet, and sometime playfully so. But Lindop is far from facetious; and he has also an excellent ear…Rhythm, echo, rhyme, half-rhyme - all the tricks in the poet's bag work for him…as for a master, so unobtrusively that it is only at the second or third reading that you become aware that the thought and feeling…are supported by an amazingly intricate web of sound.
'There's nothing cheap here; these poems don't make a song-and-dance about themselves. But you won't forget them.'
|
|
PLAYING WITH FIRE
£9.95 from Carcanet Press: in print shortly: PRE-PUBLICATION ORDERS CAN BE PLACED NOW with Carcanet or Amazon: go to LINKS and scroll down to order on-line.
'...Here nothing is real
And everything is possible, this is the Green Cabaret,
Blue Angel, Moulin Rouge, Cabinet of Dr Caligari
And we are all on stage, we are all lost
In our own and each other's imaginations. The drinks cost
Only pub prices, entrance is free
And nothing is hidden or true or lied about. Believe me,
All that goes on in here is pure poetry.'
Eavan Boland has praised Grevel Lindop's 'lyric voice that handles images well, that distinguishes - as few poets do - the erotic from the sexual, that moves language in and out of metaphor with skill and grace.'
The erotic and the sexual are both richly represented in this opulent new collection, whose subjects of celebration range from the lemons in Robert Graves's garden to a blood-drinking Tibetan deity, from the music of Faure to the Tahitian paintings of Gauguin. At its heart are a group of passionately sensuous love poems, and a sequence set in an East London strip club, treated with the colour, imaginative insight, and verbal skill that led R.V. Bailey, reviewing Lindop's Selected Poems in 2000, to write of 'these carefully crafted, often searching, probably durable, traditional poems...All the tricks in the poet's bag work for him as a master, so unobtrusively that it is only at the second or third reading that you become aware that the thought and feeling...are supported by an amazingly intricate web of sound.'
PLAYING WITH FIRE will enhance Lindop's reputation for originality as well as for mastery of poetic tradition.
As Kathleen Raine wrote, 'Grevel Lindop celebrates a cosmic harmony that upholds the greatest and the least parts of the universe...I find something akin to those early French films like Rene Claire's "Sous les toits de Paris" in the eye with which he habitually sees the world. [Yet] whatever parallel such poetry may have with Impressionism, the atmosphere is unmistakably English. His perspectives open on the stories within stories, where what is "real" and what is illusory are woven together. Grevel Lindop does not see the world about him as in need of "improving", for he sees all with the eye of love.'
|
|
TOURISTS
Published 1987 by Carcanet Press. ISBN: 0 95635 697 2
95 pp. paperback £6.95
Reviewing TOURISTS on first publication, Elizabeth Jennings wrote in The Independent:
'IT is an unusual pleasure nowadays to read the work of a poet who writes quietly yet also manages to capture and hold our attention completely. Grevel Lindop writes gently but also profoundly. He does not need to shout but engages us by coaxing. His language nonetheless is highly original and he deals with the most important themes - love, childhood, nature, art, old age.
This poet has a highly developed sense of form and he is intelligent yet not obscure. It is perhaps his humanity and tact which are most enduring and most rare. ..Tourists is a large book and its title poem is the last one in it. It is a long meditative piece and shows what a good Nature poet Lindop is. he is also very satisfying on art and has written twenty-one poems which celebrate Bewick's tiny engravings. Bewick is perfectly suited to this poet's best gifts - care for detail, love of nature, clear eye and formal excellence. Every poem shows us more than we have seen with our own eyes.'
TOURISTS is currently available for order from Carcanet Press, Amazon or your local bookseller.
|
|
TOUCHING THE EARTH: A POEM ON THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA
Books I - IV
Published 2001 by Wisdom Audio Visual Exchange
This book is the first published instalment of a long poem-in-progress on the Buddha's life. The poem is intended eventually to deal with that life from birth to final passing-away, including extensive mythological material and an exploration of cosmic, spiritual and magical matters related to the Buddha's life and teaching. This edition - the only book-form publication so far - was produced in Australia for free distribution. If you would like a free copy, please email Grevel Lindop to arrange despatch.
A PRISMATIC TOY
Published 1991 by Carcanet Press ISBN: 0 85635 921 1
91 pp. paperback £6.95
A PRISMATIC TOY explores the interplay of vision and voice - ways of seeing the world and ways of saying it. Its voices range from a three-year-old girl's account of her day to that of Rilke as he turns painfully towards modernism; its visions range from a telescopic view of Liverpool Cathedral to the archetypal worlds of myth and folktale.
'Lindop's already proven powers of description are extraordinary...joined by a wit which is both lexical and syntactic.' - Times Literary Supplement.
Thomas Chatterton: SELECTED POEMS
Edited by Grevel Lindop
Reissued 2003 by Carcanet Press £6.95 ISBN: 1 85754 692 X
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was the first English Romantic poet. A witty satirist in his own right, he became famous when he forged a group of remarkable 'medieval' poems which, colourful, evocative and powerful, generated huge controversy amongst contemporary scholars. Failing to make his way as an author, he committed suicide in London at the age of seventeen. His tragedy established for subsequent generations throughout Europe the image of the doomed poet; his poems inspired Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and many others. This paperback selection makes the best of his poems available for modern readers with an informative introduction and notes.
Robert Graves: THE WHITE GODDESS
A new edition, edited and introduced by Grevel Lindop
Published 1999 by Faber and Faber ISBN: 0 571 17425 6
520 pp. paperback £14.99
A new edition of Robert Graves's classic work on the sources of poetic inspiration and their roots in ancient religion. It presents the text of the book as Graves intended it to be read, and adds Graves's own essay on how the book was written, his replies to its critics, and an illuminating introduction by the editor rendering this most puzzling work of poetic vision accessible to present-day readers. Originally prepared for Carcanet Press's Robert Graves Project in 1997, this paperback edition makes available an essential work for all lovers of poetry, mythology and the mysterious.
GRAVES AND THE GODDESS: Essays on Robert Graves's The White Goddess
Edited by Grevel Lindop and Ian Firla
Published 2003 by Susquehanna University Press ISBN: 1 57591 055 1
202 pp. hardback.
A collection of essays exploring The White Goddess from a variety of perspectives. The White Goddess's place in Graves's life, its literary sources, its roots in Celtic scholarship, its textual development, and its relationships with feminism, with modern poetry, and with Graves's research on early Christianity and Greek myth are among the topics covered by a range of scholars. The product of a 1998 conference celebrating Fifty Years of The White Goddess, the book is essential reading for all who seek a deeper understanding of Graves's profoundly complex work.
Thomas De Quincey: CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER AND OTHER WRITINGS
Edited by Grevel Lindop
Oxford World's Classics. ISBN: 0 19 283654 4
257 pp. paperback.
De Quincey's Confessions, first published in 1821, remain the classic account of the joys and pains of opium and of the trials of the addict. They are also a classic of Romantic autobiography. Vividly written, laced with grim humour, sparkling with wit and learning, they are an essential and exciting work. This edition gives the Confessions alongside De Quincey's other principal writings - 'On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth', 'Suspiria de Profundis', and 'The English Mail-Coach' - in a single convenient volume with a critical introduction and notes.
THE WORKS OF THOMAS DE QUINCEY
General Editor Grevel Lindop
21 vols, published 2000-2003 by Pickering and Chatto Ltd
ISBN: Vols 1-7: 1 85196 054 0; Vols 8-14: 1 851965 19 X; Vols 15-21: 1 85196 52 0 3.
This is the only complete edition of the works of Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859). Superseding the defective and incomplete nineteenth-century collections, this edition gives all of De Quincey's writings, published and unpublished, from the Diary kept in his eighteenth year through his career as essayist, critic, philosopher, autobiographer, novelist and political economist, to the reflections and revisions of his final years. Produced by a team of leading scholars, fully annotated and indexed, it is the indispensable scholarly basis for work on De Quincey, his times and his circle - a circle which included Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Hazlitt and many other leading figures of the day.
|
|
|
|
