Penguin Modern Poets 50 Years On

Osip Mandelstam (1977)

If you want a quick overview of twentieth century poetry, you could do worse than run your eye over the list below of Penguin Modern European Poets - as well as their English-language counterparts, the Penguin Modern Poets. I wrote a post earlier this year about the Penguin Poets in Translation series, which I've also been collecting for many years, but these two multi-volume sets are every bit as interesting, I think.

Penguin Modern Poets

The twenty-eight volumes of Penguin Modern Poets include 81 writers - a bit like our three volumes of New Zealand Poets in Performance which contain, in all, recordings of 82 poets. They range from thirties survivors such as Lawrence Durrell and Stephen Spender to the poets of the 'Mersey Sound' (Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten), who far outsold anyone else in the series - though volume 5, starring the American Beat poets Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, was also a monster bestseller.

Penguin Modern Poets

According to wikipedia, it was followed by a second series of 13 new "Penguin Modern Poets" in the 1990s, and yet another series had its debut in 2016, and has now reached its seventh volume. These are no doubt equally worthy - in the abstract, at any rate - but they somehow lack the excitement of that original set of black-backed books.

You'll note I say '28' rather than '27' volumes. This is because of the 1983 sequel to the original Mersey Sound book, no. 10 in the series ("which, with sales of over 500,000, has become one of the best-selling poetry anthologies ever").

Penguin Poets: New Volume

I liked the books, and collected them assiduously. My real enthusiasm, however, was roused by some of the volumes in the Penguin Modern European Poets series. Clarence Brown and W. S. Merwin's wonderful versions of Mandelstam were particularly revelatory, but so were the Celan selections of Michael Hamburger and Christopher Middleton.

The sheer extent and chutzpah of the series was almost breathtaking. It seemed to aspire to modernise the whole of English-language poetry by showing us what we'd been missing all these years. I don't know how far they got with their spin-off series of Penguin Latin American poets - the only one of those I've ever been able to find is their translation of the Peruvian poet César Vallejo:

César Vallejo

Vallejo, César. Selected Poems. Trans. Ed Dorn & Gordon Brotherston. Introduction by Gordon Brotherston. Penguin Latin American Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.

They also published versions of Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz, but those were in the 'Penguin Poets' series rather than a specific Latin American offshoot.

These wonderful books gave me my first exposure to poets such as Fernando Pessoa, Marina Tsvetayeva, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Vladimir Holan. I may have cheated a little in the lists below by including a few volumes which were actually labelled "Penguin Poets" among the "Penguin Modern European Poets", so-called, but given, in that case, that I would have to have left Pablo Neruda, Boris Pasternak and Octavio Paz to one side, I'm pretty unapologetic about it. They are, in each case, clearly the same kind of book as all the others.

The first in the series seems to have been Jacques Prévert in 1958. It didn't really get going again until Apollinaire appeared in 1965. After that, though, they came thick and fast until the multi-authored Renga in 1979. I count 37 in the series proper (leaving out the three 'penguin poets' volumes mentioned above). I'd love to know if there are others I've missed. If so, they don't seem to have left much of a trace online.

The one listing I have come across, on the World Literature Forum, includes only 26 volumes to my 37. This, moreover, includes the West Indian poet Aimé Césaire, who (so far as I can see) actually falls under the cognate category of "Penguin Poets."

Césaire, Aimé. Return to My Native Land. 1956. Trans. John Berger & Anna Bostock. Introduction by Mazisi Kunene. Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.

Whatever one counts in or out of the series, it was clearly a magnificent effort, inspired to a great extent by the cosmopolitan interests of Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, who co-founded the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) in 1965. Al Alvarez, long-time editor of the series - and author of Under Pressure - The Writer in Society: Eastern Europe and the U.S.A. (1965) - also contributed a great deal.

Between them, they succeeded (for a time, at least) in waking up the in-bred, monoglot English poetry scene to the existence of an outside world of dazzling linguistic inventfulness and engaged poetics. They certainly needed it then - but no more (I suspect) than we need it again now.

Guillevic (1974)

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Penguin Modern Poets 1 (1962)

Penguin Modern Poets
(1962-1983)

1. Penguin Modern Poets 1: Lawrence Durrell / Elizabeth Jennings / R. S. Thomas. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.


2. Penguin Modern Poets 2: Kingsley Amis / Dom Moraes / Peter Porter. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962.


3. Penguin Modern Poets 3: George Barker / Martin Bell / Charles Causley. 1962. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966.


4. Penguin Modern Poets 4: David Holbrook / Christopher Middleton / David Wevill. 1963. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


5. Penguin Modern Poets 5: Gregory Corso / Lawrence Ferlinghetti / Allen Ginsberg. 1963. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


6. Penguin Modern Poets 6: Jack Clemo / Edward Lucie-Smith / George MacBeth. 1964. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


7. Penguin Modern Poets 7: Richard Murphy / Jon Silkin / Nathaniel Tarn. 1965. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


8. Penguin Modern Poets 8: Edwin Brock / Geoffrey Hill / Stevie Smith. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966.


9. Penguin Modern Poets 9: Denise Levertov / Kenneth Rexroth / William Carlos Williams. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967.


10. Penguin Modern Poets 10: The Mersey Sound – Adrian Henri / Roger McGough / Brian Patten. 1967. Revised and Enlarged edition. 1974. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


11. The Penguin Poets: New Volume – Adrian Henri / Roger McGough / Brian Patten. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983.


12. Penguin Modern Poets 11: D. M. Black / Peter Redgrove / D. M. Thomas. 1968. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


13. Penguin Modern Poets 12: Alan Jackson / Jeff Nuttall / William Wanting. 1968. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


14. Penguin Modern Poets 13: Charles Bukowski / Philip Lamantia / Harold Norse. 1969. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


15. Penguin Modern Poets 14: Alan Bronwjohn / Michael Hamburger / Charles Tomlinson. 1969. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


16. Penguin Modern Poets 15: Alan Bold / Edward Brathwaite / Edwin Morgan. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


17. Penguin Modern Poets 16: Jack Beeching / Harry Guest / Matthew Mead. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


18. Penguin Modern Poets 17: David Gascoyne / W. S. Graham / Kathleen Raine. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


19. Penguin Modern Poets 18: A. Alvarez / Roy Fuller / Anthony Thwaite. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


20. Penguin Modern Poets 19: John Ashbery / Lee Harwood / Tom Raworth. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


21. Penguin Modern Poets 20: John Heath-Stubbs / F. T. Prince / Stephen Spender. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.


22. Penguin Modern Poets 21: Iain Crichton Smith / Norman MacCaig / George Mackay Brown. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.


23. Penguin Modern Poets 22: John Fuller / Peter Levi / Adrian Mitchell. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.


24. Penguin Modern Poets 23: Geoffrey Grigson / Edwin Muir / Adrian Stokes. Guest Ed. Stephen Spender. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.


25. Penguin Modern Poets 24: Kenward Elmslie / Kenneth Koch / James Schuyler. Guest Ed. John Ashbery. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


26. Penguin Modern Poets 25: Gavin Ewart / Zulfikar Ghose / B. S. Johnson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


27. Penguin Modern Poets 26: Dannie Abse, D.J. Enright, Michael Longley. Guest Ed. Anthony Thwaite. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


28. Penguin Modern Poets 27: John Ormond / Emyr Humphreys / John Tripp. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.

Penguin Modern Poets 26 (1975)

•


Anna Akhmatova (1969)

Penguin Modern European Poets
(c.1958-1984)

[Alphabetical]:

1. Akhmatova, Anna. Selected Poems. Trans. Richard McKane. Essay by Andrei Sinyavsky. 1969. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


2. Amichai, Yehuda. Selected Poems. Trans. Assia Gutmann & Harold Schimmel, with Ted Hughes. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


3. Apollinaire, Guillaume. Selected Poems. Trans. Oliver Bernard. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


4. Blok, Alexander. Selected Poems. Trans. Jon Stallworthy & Peter France. 1970. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


5. Bobrowski, Johannes, & Horst Bienek. Selected Poems. Trans. Ruth & Matthew Mead. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


6. Brodsky, Joseph. Selected Poems. Trans. George L. Kline. Foreword by W. H. Auden. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.


7. Carmi, T. & Dan Pagis. Selected Poems. Trans. Stephen Mitchell. Introduction by M. L. Rosentha. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.


8. Celan, Paul. Selected Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton. 1962 & 1967. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.


9. Cendrars, Blaise. Selected Poems. Trans. Peter Hoida. Introduction by Mary Ann Caws. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


10. Three Czech Poets: Vitezslau Nezval / Antonin Bartusek / Josef Hanzlik. Selected Poems. Trans. Ewald Osers & George Theiner. Introduction by Graham Martin. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


11. Ekelöf, Gunnar. Selected Poems. Trans. W. H. Auden & Leif Sjöberg. Introduction by Göran Printz-Pahlson. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


12. Enzensburger, Hans Magnus. Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Jerome Rothenberg, with the author. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.


13. Grass, Günter. Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton. 1966 & 1968. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. 1969. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


14. Four Greek Poets: C. P. Cavafy / Odysseus Elytis / Nikos Gatsos / George Seferis. Selected Poems. Trans. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard. Penguin Modern European Poets. 1966. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


15. Guillevic. Selected Poems. Trans. Teo Savory. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


16. Haavikko, Paavo, & Tomas Tranströmer. Selected Poems. Trans. Anselm Hollo, & Robin Fulton. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


17. Herbert, Zbigniew. Selected Poems. Trans. Czeslaw Milosz & Peter Dale Scott. Introduction by A. Alvarez. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.


18. Holan, Vladimir. Selected Poems. Trans. Jarmila & Ian Milner. Introduction by Ian Milner. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


19. Holub, Miroslav. Selected Poems. Trans. Ian Milner & George Theiner. Introduction by A. Alvarez. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. 1967. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


20. Jiménez, Juan Ramón, & Antonio Machado. Selected Poems. Trans. J. B. Trend & J. L. Gili, Charles Tomlinson & Henry Gifford. Introductions by J. B. Trend & Henry Gifford. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


21. Kovner, Abba, & Nelly Sachs. Selected Poems. Trans. Shirley Kaufman & Nurit Orchan, Michael Hamburger, Ruth & Matthew Mead & Michael Roloff. Introduction by Stephen Spender. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


22. Mandelstam, Osip. Selected Poems. Trans. Clarence Brown & W. S. Merwin. Introduction by Clarence Brown. 1973. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.


23. Montale, Eugenio. Selected Poems. Trans. George Kay. 1964. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


24. Neruda, Pablo. Selected Poems: A Bi-lingual Edition. Ed. Nathaniel Tarn. Trans. Anthony Kerrigan, W. S. Merwin, Alastair Reid, & Nathaniel Tarn. 1970. Introduction by Jean Franco. Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


25. Three Painter Poets: Jean (Hans) Arp / Kurt Schwitters / Paul Klee. Selected Poems. Trans. Harriett Watts. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


26. Pasternak, Boris. Selected Poems. Trans. Jon Stallworthy & Peter France. 1983. The Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.


27. Pavese, Cesare. Selected Poems. Trans. Margaret Crosland. 1969. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


28. Paz, Octavio. Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition. Ed. Charles Tomlinson. The Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


29. Paz, Octavio, Jacques Roubaud, Edoardo Sanguineti, & Charles Tomlinson. Renga: A Chain of Poems. Foreword by Claude Roy. Introduction by Octavio Paz. 1971. Ed. & trans. Charles Tomlinson. 1972. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


30. Pessoa, Fernando. Selected Poems. Trans. Jonathan Griffin. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


31. Popa, Vasko. Selected Poems. Trans. Anne Pennington. Introduction by Ted Hughes. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


32. Prévert, Jacques. Selections from Paroles. Trans. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Penguin Modern European Poets. 1958. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


33. Quasimodo, Salvatore. Selected Poems. Trans. Jack Bevan. 1965. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


34. Rilke, Rainer Maria. Selected Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman. 1964. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.


35. Ritsos, Yannis. Selected Poems. Trans. Nikos Stangos. Introduction by Peter Bien. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


36. Rozewicz, Tadeusz. Selected Poems. Trans. Adam Czerniawski. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.


37. Tsvetayeva, Marina. Selected Poems. Trans. Elaine Feinstein. Foreword by Max Hayward. 1971. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


38. Ungaretti, Giuseppe. Selected Poems. Trans. Patrick Creagh. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


39. Weöres, Sándor, & Ferenc Juhász. Selected Poems. Trans. Edwin Morgan, & David Wevill. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


40. Yevtushenko, Yevgeny. Selected Poems. Trans. Robin Milner-Gulland & Peter Levi, S.J. 1962. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1964)

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Three Czech Poets (1971)

[By Nationality]:

Czech:


1. Three Czech Poets: Vitezslau Nezval / Antonin Bartusek / Josef Hanzlik. Selected Poems. Trans. Ewald Osers & George Theiner. Introduction by Graham Martin. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


2. Holan, Vladimir. Selected Poems. Trans. Jarmila & Ian Milner. Introduction by Ian Milner. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


3. Holub, Miroslav. Selected Poems. Trans. Ian Milner & George Theiner. Introduction by A. Alvarez. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. 1967. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.

French:


4. Apollinaire, Guillaume. Selected Poems. Trans. Oliver Bernard. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


5. Cendrars, Blaise. Selected Poems. Trans. Peter Hoida. Introduction by Mary Ann Caws. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


6. Guillevic. Selected Poems. Trans. Teo Savory. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


7. Prévert, Jacques. Selections from Paroles. Trans. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Penguin Modern European Poets. 1958. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.

German:


8. Three Painter Poets: Jean (Hans) Arp / Kurt Schwitters / Paul Klee. Selected Poems. Trans. Harriett Watts. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


9. Bobrowski, Johannes, & Horst Bienek. Selected Poems. Trans. Ruth & Matthew Mead. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


10. Celan, Paul. Selected Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton. 1962 & 1967. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.


11. Enzensburger, Hans Magnus. Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Jerome Rothenberg, with the author. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.


12. Grass, Günter. Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton. 1966 & 1968. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. 1969. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


13. Rilke, Rainer Maria. Selected Poems. Trans. J. B. Leishman. 1964. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978.

Greek:


14. Four Greek Poets: C. P. Cavafy / Odysseus Elytis / Nikos Gatsos / George Seferis. Selected Poems. Trans. Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard. Penguin Modern European Poets. 1966. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


15. Ritsos, Yannis. Selected Poems. Trans. Nikos Stangos. Introduction by Peter Bien. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.

Hungarian:


16. Weöres, Sándor, & Ferenc Juhász. Selected Poems. Trans. Edwin Morgan, & David Wevill. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.

Israeli / Jewish:


17. Amichai, Yehuda. Selected Poems. Trans. Assia Gutmann & Harold Schimmel, with Ted Hughes. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


18. Carmi, T. & Dan Pagis. Selected Poems. Trans. Stephen Mitchell. Introduction by M. L. Rosentha. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.


19. Kovner, Abba, & Nelly Sachs. Selected Poems. Trans. Shirley Kaufman & Nurit Orchan, Michael Hamburger, Ruth & Matthew Mead & Michael Roloff. Introduction by Stephen Spender. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.

Italian:


20. Montale, Eugenio. Selected Poems. Trans. George Kay. 1964. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


21. Pavese, Cesare. Selected Poems. Trans. Margaret Crosland. 1969. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


22. Quasimodo, Salvatore. Selected Poems. Trans. Jack Bevan. 1965. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.


23. Ungaretti, Giuseppe. Selected Poems. Trans. Patrick Creagh. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.

Polish:


24. Herbert, Zbigniew. Selected Poems. Trans. Czeslaw Milosz & Peter Dale Scott. Introduction by A. Alvarez. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.


25. Rozewicz, Tadeusz. Selected Poems. Trans. Adam Czerniawski. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976.

Portuguese:


26. Pessoa, Fernando. Selected Poems. Trans. Jonathan Griffin. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.

Romanian:


27. Popa, Vasko. Selected Poems. Trans. Anne Pennington. Introduction by Ted Hughes. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.

Russsian:


28. Akhmatova, Anna. Selected Poems. Trans. Richard McKane. Essay by Andrei Sinyavsky. 1969. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


29. Blok, Alexander. Selected Poems. Trans. Jon Stallworthy & Peter France. 1970. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


30. Brodsky, Joseph. Selected Poems. Trans. George L. Kline. Foreword by W. H. Auden. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.


31. Mandelstam, Osip. Selected Poems. Trans. Clarence Brown & W. S. Merwin. Introduction by Clarence Brown. 1973. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.


32. Pasternak, Boris. Selected Poems. Trans. Jon Stallworthy & Peter France. 1983. The Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.


33. Tsvetayeva, Marina. Selected Poems. Trans. Elaine Feinstein. Foreword by Max Hayward. 1971. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


34. Yevtushenko, Yevgeny. Selected Poems. Trans. Robin Milner-Gulland & Peter Levi, S.J. 1962. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.

Scandinavian:


35. Ekelöf, Gunnar. Selected Poems. Trans. W. H. Auden & Leif Sjöberg. Introduction by Göran Printz-Pahlson. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


36. Haavikko, Paavo, & Tomas Tranströmer. Selected Poems. Trans. Anselm Hollo, & Robin Fulton. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.

Spanish:


37. Jiménez, Juan Ramón, & Antonio Machado. Selected Poems. Trans. J. B. Trend & J. L. Gili, Charles Tomlinson & Henry Gifford. Introductions by J. B. Trend & Henry Gifford. Penguin Modern European Poets. Ed. A. Alvarez. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


38. Neruda, Pablo. Selected Poems: A Bi-lingual Edition. Ed. Nathaniel Tarn. Trans. Anthony Kerrigan, W. S. Merwin, Alastair Reid, & Nathaniel Tarn. 1970. Introduction by Jean Franco. Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


39. Paz, Octavio. Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition. Ed. Charles Tomlinson. The Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.


40. Paz, Octavio, Jacques Roubaud, Edoardo Sanguineti, & Charles Tomlinson. Renga: A Chain of Poems. Foreword by Claude Roy. Introduction by Octavio Paz. 1971. Ed. & trans. Charles Tomlinson. 1972. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979.

Renga (1979)

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Classic Ghost Story Writers: E. T. A. Hoffmann

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822)

•

In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know, a world without devils or vampires, there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world.

So says Tzvetan Todorov, in his famous essay on The Fantastic. He continues:

The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions: either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination – and laws of the world then remain what they are; or else the event had indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality – but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us.

This moment of doubt, during which the person experiencing the event is unsure whether it is truly supernatural or just an illusion of some kind, constitutes the "fantastic" (for Todorov, at least):

The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty. Once we choose one answer or the other, we leave the fantastic for a neighbouring genre, the uncanny or the marvellous. The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.

Tzvetan Todorov: The Fantastic (1970)

So far, so good. I think we can easily understand the distinction he makes between the marvellous - a world where the supernatural does prevail (the world of Dracula, for instance) - and the uncanny, a situation where everyday events present themselves in a strange and deceptive light.

Further attempts to unpack just precisely what is meant by this term "the uncanny" take us rapidly into deeper waters, though. In terms of fiction, it has a tendency to bring us to the door of the German Romantic writer and musician, E. T. A. Hoffmann.

•


ETA Hoffmann Promenade

Freud's touchstone essay on 'The Uncanny' [unheimlich in German] first appeared in 1919. In outlining his sense of just what it actually consists of, he was forced to rely on the work of Hoffmann, whom he referred to as the "unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature."

German Psychiatrist Ernst Jensch had earlier suggested, in his own 1906 essay 'On the Psychology of the Uncanny,' that it should be defined as a product of:

... intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always, as it were, be something one does not know one’s way about in. The better oriented in his environment a person is, the less readily will he get the impression of something uncanny in regard to the objects and events in it.

Jensch goes on to specify Hoffmann's story "The Sandman" as a fruitful source for this anxiety, mainly because of the presence of the lifelike doll, Olympia, who is one of its principal characters:

In telling a story one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton and to do it in such a way that his attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately.

Freud, however, saw Jensch's analysis as somewhat simplistic:

I cannot think – and I hope most readers of the story will agree with me – that the theme of the doll Olympia, who is to all appearances a living being, is by any means the only, or indeed the most important, element that must be held responsible for the quite unparalleled atmosphere of uncanniness evoked by the story.

Instead, Freud stresses "the idea of being robbed of one's eyes" as a "more striking instance of uncanniness" in the story. He goes on to link this to the uncanny effects that result from instances of "repetition of the same thing," linking this to his infamous repetition compulsion. He also comments on the central theme of blindness in 'The Sandman':

A study of dreams, phantasies and myths has taught us that anxiety about one's eyes, the fear of going blind, is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated. The self-blinding of the mythical criminal, Oedipus, was simply a mitigated form of the punishment of castration – the only punishment that was adequate for him by the lex talionis.

Masahiro Mori: The Uncanny Valley

Roboticist Masahiro Mori's 'uncanny valley' diagram, which attempts to analyses our persistent anxiety at the idea of the inanimate made animate, clearly owes a good deal to Jensch as well as Freud.

This influence can also be seen in Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection. Abjection can also be uncanny, when the observer recognizes something within the abject, possibly some component of what it was before it was 'cast out', whilst still simultaneously being repulsed by whatever it was that caused it to be cast out in the first place. Kristevan abjection lays special emphasis on the uncanny return of the past - particularly in the form of the 'uncanny stranger'.

'The Sandman' is certainly one of the strangest and most complex stories Hoffmann ever wrote. Whether it can quite bear the burden of all this weight of analysis is another question, but certainly repeated readings do little to dissipate the strange atmosphere it creates.

Perhaps a better source for Hoffmann's own views on the subject is his later story "The Uncanny Guest" (Der unheimliche Gast in German). The story begins with a long discussion of:

"... that incomprehensible, mysterious condition - deeply grounded in our human organism - which our minds strive in vain to fight against, and which we ought to take great care not to allow ourselves to yield to overmuch. What I mean is, the fear of the supernatural. We all know that the uncanny race of ghosts, the haunters, choose the night (and particularly in stormy weather) to arise from their darksome dwellings and set forth upon their mysterious wanderings. So that we are right in expecting some of those fearsome visitants just at a time like this."

The speaker, Dagobert, friend of Moritz (the main character in the story), turns out to be right to expect a 'fearsome visitant' as the culmination of the expectations engendered by the storm which is raging outside. He comes, in fact, at the climax of a story told by Moritz about just such a supernatural outsider, in the form of a mysterious 'Count' who (it eventually proves) was actually the subject of the anecdote. And, just as that story ends as a door crashes open, so does this story begin with another door - their own - crashing open.

One can see here that Hoffmann does not hesitate to employ the standard toolkit of the Gothic novelist: mysterious strangers, haunted ruins, buried treasure, and childhood loves which persist beyond the grave. However the element of psychological acuity lying behind these rather stagey properties may explain the comparative longevity of his stories. They always seem to imply more than they actually say: to promise more than their rather conventional denouements can ever provide.

•


Tales of Hoffmann

I have a number of different translations of Hoffmann's tales, but the stories in them overlap. Some, such as 'The Sandman,' are in all of them. Others occur only in one or two. There are 35 stories in the four collections I own. When you eliminate repetitions (or should I say doppelgängers?), there are only 21 left. Here's a list of them all, in rough chronological order:

1. Ritter Gluck
2. Don Juan
3. The Golden Flower Pot
4. A New Year's Eve Adventure (aka The Lost Reflection]
5. The Sandman
6. The Vow
7. The Jesuit Church in Glogau
8. The Entail
9. The Deserted House
10. Councillor Krespel
11. The Mines of Falun
12. Nutcracker and the King of Mice
13. A Ghost Story
14. Automata
15. Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men
16. The Uncanny Guest
17. Mademoiselle de Scudéri
18. Gamblers' Luck
19. Signor Formica
20. The King's Betrothed
21. The Doubles

And here they are listed, in bold, according to which of the various collections of his work they first appeared in:

E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kreisler



1. from Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier [Fantasy Pieces in the Manner of Callot] - 7 stories (1814)
   1. Ritter Gluck [Ritter Gluck]
   2. Kreisleriana
   3. Don Juan [Don Juan]
   4. Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza
   5. Der Magnetiseur
   6. The Golden Flower Pot [Der goldne Topf]
   7. A New Year's Eve Adventure [Die Abenteuer der Silvesternacht]




E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Sandman



2. from Nachtstücke [Night-pieces] - 8 stories (1817)
   1. The Sandman [Der Sandmann]
   2. The Vow [Das Gelübde]
   3. Ignaz Denner
   4. The Jesuit Church in Glogau [Die Jesuiterkirche in G.]
   5. The Entail [Das Majorat]
   6. The Deserted House [Das öde Haus]
   7. Das Sanctus
   8. Das steinerne Herz




E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Double



3. from Die Serapionsbrüder [The Serapion Brotherhood] - 28 stories (1819)
   1. Der Einsiedler Serapion
   2. Councillor Krespel [Rat Krespel]
   3. Die Fermate
   4. Der Dichter und der Komponist
   5. Ein Fragment aus dem Leben dreier Freunde
   6. Der Artushof
   7. The Mines of Falun [Die Bergwerke zu Falun]
   8. Nutcracker and the King of Mice [Nußknacker und Mausekönig]
   9. Der Kampf der Sänger
   10. A Ghost Story [Eine Spukgeschichte]
   11. Automata [Die Automate]
   12. Doge und Dogaresse
   13. Alte und neue Kirchenmusik
   14. Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men [Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen]
   15. Das fremde Kind
   16. Nachricht aus dem Leben eines bekannten Mannes
   17. Die Brautwahl
   18. The Uncanny Guest [Der unheimliche Gast]
   19. Mademoiselle de Scudéri [Das Fräulein von Scuderi]
   20. Gamblers' Luck [Spielerglück]
   21. Der Baron von B.
   22. Signor Formica [Signor Formica]
   23. Zacharias Werner
   24. Erscheinungen
   25. Der Zusammenhang der Dinge
   26. Vampirismus
   27. Die ästhetische Teegesellschaft
   28. The King's Betrothed [Die Königsbraut]




E. T. A. Hoffmann: Hand drawings



4. from Letzte Erzählungen [Last Stories] - 13 stories (1825)
   1. Haimatochare
   2. Die Marquise de la Pivardiere
   3. Die Irrungen
   4. Die Geheimnisse
   5. Der Elementargeist
   6. Die Räuber
   7. The Doubles [Die Doppeltgänger] (1821)
   8. Datura fastuosa
   9. Meister Johannes Wacht
   10. Des Vetters Eckfenster
   11. Die Genesung
   12. Aus dem Nachlass:
       • Neueste Schicksale eines abenteuerlichen Mannes
       • Der Feind

E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Entail

•


Jacques Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann (1881)

So what are they like to read? Well, they're a fruitful source of opera libretti, for one thing. As well as The Tales of Hoffmann, above, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker is also based on one of Hoffmann's stories.

Some of them ('Tobias Martin,' 'Mademoiselle de Scudéri') are largely historical in inspiration - based on considerable research on Hoffmann's part. The ones he's most famous for are psychological tales about divided selves, automata and various other idées fixes - as much of the author as any of his characters, one often feels.

Have they stood the test of time? Certainly one can see the seeds of many of the ideas and motifs we associate with such giants as Gogol, Dostoevsky and Poe in Hoffmann, though there's no sense in pretending that his work is on a par with theirs in literary merit.

At times, though, in such works as 'The Sandman' or 'Councillor Krespel,' there's a kind of visionary power in Hoffmann which gives one the sense of an author who never quite reached his full stature. He was only in his mid-forties when he died, and much of his time up till then had been devoted to music rather than literature. He was, in fact, the first German composer who could really have been said to have been a Romantic, before Weber and Beethoven, and a potent influence on both of them.

Finally, Hoffmann must be seen more as a seedbed of ideas than the source of their complete fruition. The idea of combining complex psychological insights with the machinery of the horror story is all his, however. So much is owed by so many to his intuitions that it's unlikely that his work in this genre will ever be entirely superseded.

Todorov prefers to discuss such works as Count Jan Potocki's Manuscript Found at Saragossa not so much because he can't find useful analogues for his ideas in Hoffmann, but rather because Hoffmann had been such a fruitful source of inspiration to Freud and others that Todorov may have felt that it was time to find some texts that were less familiar. Hoffmann is, in that sense, perhaps best seen as equivalent in influence to a German Poe.

Here, then, is my own Hoffmann collection: by no means complete, but perhaps a good place to start:

•


E. T. A. Hoffmann: Gesammelte Werke

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm [later 'Amadeus'] Hoffmann
(1776-1822)

1. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Werke in zwei Bänden. Band 1: Romane. Ed. Carl Georg von Maassen & Georg Ellinger. Afterword by Walter Müller-Seidel. Notes by Wolfgang Kron. Jubliäumsbibliothek der deutschen Literatur. 2 vols. München: Winkler Verlag, n.d.
   
   
   • Die Elixiere des Teufels (1815)
   • Lebensansichten des Katers Murr (1820)


2. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Werke in zwei Bänden. Band 2: Erzählungen und Märchen. Ed. Carl Georg von Maassen & Georg Ellinger. Afterword by Walter Müller-Seidel. Notes by Wolfgang Kron. Jubliäumsbibliothek der deutschen Literatur. 2 vols. München: Winkler Verlag, n.d.
   
   
   • Die Serapionsbrüder (1819)
     Erster Band:
     1. Der Einsiedler Serapion
     2. Rat Krespel
     3. Die Fermate
     4. Der Dichter und der Komponist
     5. Ein Fragment aus dem Leben dreier Freunde
     6. Der Artushof
     7. Die Bergwerke zu Falun
     8. Nußknacker und Mausekönig
     Zweiter Band:
     9. Der Kampf der Sänger
     10. Eine Spukgeschichte
     11. Die Automate
     12. Doge und Dogaresse
     13. Alte und neue Kirchenmusik
     14. Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen
     15. Das fremde Kind
     Dritter Band:
     16. Nachricht aus dem Leben eines bekannten Mannes
     17. Die Brautwahl
     18. Der unheimliche Gast
     19. Das Fräulein von Scuderi
     20. Spielerglück
     21. Der Baron von B.
     Vierter Band:
     22. Signor Formica
     23. Zacharias Werner
     24. Erscheinungen
     25. Der Zusammenhang der Dinge
     26. Vampirismus
     27. Die ästhetische Teegesellschaft
     28. Die Königsbraut




Hugo Steiner-Prag, ed.: The Tales of Hoffmann (1943)



3. Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Tales of Hoffmann: Stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Translated out of the German by Various Hands, Illustrated with Lithographs by Hugo Steiner-Prag Together with a Prologue from the Illustrator. Introductory Essay by Arthur Ransome. Trans. J. T. Bealby, E. N. Bennett, Alex Ewing, Maria Labocceta, Jacques Le Clercq, Barrows Mussey & F. E. Pierce. The Limited Editions Club, for the George Macy Companies, Inc. New York: The Heritage Press, 1943.
   
   
   1. The Sandman
   2. The Mines of Falun
   3. Councillor Krespel
   4. Don Juan
   5. The Mystery of the Deserted House
   6. The Vow
   7. Mademoiselle de Scudéry
   8. The Entail
   9. The Uncanny Guest
   10. Gamblers' Luck




J. M. Cohen. trans.: Eight Tales of Hoffmann (1952)



4. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Eight Tales of Hoffmann. Trans. J. M. Cohen. London: Pan Books, 1952.
   
   
   1. The Lost Reflection
   2. The Sandman
   3. The Jesuit Church in Glogau
   4. The Deserted House
   5. Councillor Krespel
   6. The Mines of Falun
   7. A Ghost Story
   8. Gamblers' Luck




E. F. Bleiler, ed.: The Best Tales of Hoffmann (1967)



5. Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Best Tales of Hoffmann. Ed. E. F. Bleiler. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
   
   
   1. The Golden Flower Pot
   2. Automata
   3. A New Year's Eve Adventure
   4. Nutcracker and the King of Mice
   5. The Sand-Man
   6. Rath Krespel
   7. Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men
   8. The Mines of Falun
   9. Signor Formica
   10. The King's Betrothed




E. T. A. Hoffmann: Tales (1972)



6. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Tales. Ed. & Trans. Leonard J. Kent & Elizabeth C. Knight. Illustrated by Jacob Landau. 1969. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.
   
   
   1. Ritter Gluck
   2. The Golden Pot
   3. The Sandman
   4. Councillor Krespel
   5. The Mines of Falun
   6. Mademoiselle de Scudéri
   7. The Doubles




E. T. A. Hoffmann: Tales of Hoffmann (1982)



7. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Tales of Hoffmann. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
   
   
   1. Mademoiselle de Scudery
   2. The Sandman
   3. The Artushof
   4. Councillor Krespel
   5. The Entail
   6. Doge and Dogaressa
   7. The Mines of Falun
   8. The Choosing of the Bride




E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Golden Pot and Other Tales (2009)



8. Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Golden Pot and Other Tales: A New Translation. Trans. Ritchie Robertson. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
   
   
   1. The Golden Pot
   2. The Sandman
   3. Princess Brambilla
   4. Master Flea
   5. My Cousin's Corner Window

•


E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kater Murr

The Fiction of G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

For a long time now I've been trying to collect all the miscellaneous fiction of G. K. Chesterton. I was brought up on the Father Brown stories, and read The Man Who Was Thursday and The Napoleon of Notting Hill when I was a teenager. Beyond that, there seemed to be a bewildering variety of other books and collections I knew nothing at all about.

"Telle est la vie des hommes," as Marcel Pagnol puts it in Le Château de ma mère: "such is the life of bibliophiles." Gradually I chipped away at my list, until I realised recently that I actually now owned all the items on it.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922)

So for the past few weeks I've been sitting around enjoying the ridiculous antics of some of Chesterton's less likely heroes: the crime-solving poet Gabriel Gale of The Poet and the Lunatics, the terrifying Innocent Smith of Manalive, the insouciant Horne Fisher of The Man Who Knew too Much - all the way up to the last of his heroes, the paradoxical Mr. Pond.

I don't think there's much doubt that the best of them come from the epoch of the Edwardian swoon, before the First World War came along to bust the whole of the settled order apart. He wrote a great deal afterwards, too, but there's a cranky, polemical tone to a lot of it, unfortunately.

One also finds it increasingly difficult to tolerate his blatant anti-semitism and the rather smug religiosity which became ever more prominent after his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1922.

Martin Gardner: The Annotated Thursday (1908 / 1999)

So why read a bunch of books by a cranky old antisemite? Put like that, it's a bit difficult to explain, really. But I defy anyone to start reading The Man Who Was Thursday and then put it down again without feeling an irresistible urge to follow his characters through their various mad antics.

He was a superb writer, I'm afraid - though certainly he did, at times, write too much and too fast. How does W. H. Auden put it?

Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and the innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,

Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.

Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.

It's true that the person referred to in these verses is actually W. B. Yeats, and that Auden subsequently cut these three stanzas out of his famous elegy for the Irish poet, but I think they could be said to apply pretty well to G. K. Chesterton.

In any case, let's begin with a list of all his actual works of fiction:

•


E. H. Mills: G. K. C. (1909)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1874-1936)

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

1. The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) - novel.
2. The Club of Queer Trades (1905) - linked stories.
3. The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908) - novel.
4. The Ball and the Cross (1910) - novel.
5. The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) - linked stories.
6. Manalive (1912) - novel.
7. The Flying Inn (1914) - novel.
8. The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) - linked stories.
9. The Man Who Knew Too Much and Other Stories (1922) - linked stories.
10. Tales of the Long Bow. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1925) - linked stories.
11. The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926) - linked stories.
12. The Secret of Father Brown (1927) - linked stories.
13. The Return of Don Quixote (1927) - novel.
14. The Sword of Wood (1928) - short story.
15. The Father Brown Omnibus (1929) - linked stories.
16. The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale (1929) - linked stories.
17. Four Faultless Felons (1930) - linked stories.
18. The Scandal of Father Brown (1935) - linked stories.
19. The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond (1937) - linked stories.

The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond (1937)

To break it down a little, there are five volumes of Father Brown stories (together with three extra, uncollected stories); six novels, and six (or seven, depending on how you count) volumes of more-or-less linked short stories.

In the somewhat daunting array of volumes (37 to date) which go to make up Ignatius Press's edition of The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, no fewer than six (with, presumably, a seventh still to come) are devoted solely to fiction.

Here's a list of the volumes that have appeared since the series started in 1986:

•


Short Stories, Fairy Tales, Mystery Stories (1993)

The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton. 37 vols. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986-2011.

1. Orthodoxy / Heretics / Blatchford Controversies
2. St. Francis of Assisi / The Everlasting Man / St. Thomas Aquinas
3. The Catholic Church and Conversion / The Thing: Why I am a Catholic / The Way of the Cross / The Well and the Shallows - and others
4. What's Wrong with the World / Superstition of Divorce / Eugenics and Other Evils – and others
5. The Outline of Sanity / The End of The Armistice / The Appetite of Tyranny / Utopia of Usurers – and others
6. The Man Who Was Thursday / The Club of Queer Trades / The Napoleon of Notting Hill, ed. Denis J. Conlon (1991)
7. The Ball and the Cross / Manalive / The Flying Inn, ed. Iain T. Benson (2004)
8. The Return of Don Quixote / Tales of the Long Bow / The Man Who Knew Too Much, ed. George Marlin (1999)
9. [The Poet and the Lunatics / Four Faultless Felons / The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond] (?)
10. Collected Poetry, 3 vols, ed. Aidan Mackey & Denis J. Conlon (1994, 2008 & 2010)
11. Collected Plays and Chesterton on Shaw, ed. Denis J. Conlon (1989)
12. Father Brown Stories, Part 1 - The Innocence of Father Brown / The Wisdom of Father Brown / The Donnington Affair, ed. John Peterson (2005)
13. Father Brown Stories, Part 2 - The Incredulity of Father Brown / The Secret of Father Brown / The Scandal of Father Brown / The Vampire of the Village / The Mask of Midas, ed. John Peterson (2006)
14. Short Stories, Fairy Tales, Mystery Stories – Illustrations, ed. Denis J. Conlon (1993)
15. Chesterton on Dickens, ed. Denis J. Conlon (1993)
16. The Autobiography of G. K. Chesterton (1988)
17. [ - ] (?)
18. Thomas Carlyle / Leo Tolstoy / Robert Louis Stevenson / Chaucer, ed. Denis J. Conlon (1993)
19. [ - ] (?)
20. Christendom in Dublin / Irish Impressions / The New Jerusalem / A Short History of England
21. What I Saw in America / The Resurrection of Rome / Sidelights
22. [ - ] (?)
23. [ - ] (?)
24. [ - ] (?)
25. [ - ] (?)
26. [ - ] (?)
27. Illustrated London News, 1905-1907 (1986)
28. Illustrated London News, 1908-1910 (1987)
29. Illustrated London News, 1911-1913 (1988)
30. Illustrated London News, 1914-1916 (1988)
31. Illustrated London News, 1917-1919 (1989)
32. Illustrated London News, 1920-1922 (1989)
33. Illustrated London News, 1923-1925 (1990)
34. Illustrated London News, 1926-1928 (1991)
35. Illustrated London News, 1929-1931 (1991)
36. Illustrated London News, 1932-1934 (2011)
37. Illustrated London News, 1935-1936 / Subject Index (2012)

Collected Poetry, Part III (2010)

Mind you, I suppose there will always be those who rate him highest as a poet - and certainly he had an amazing facility for turning out stirring verse at the drop of a hat - or as an essayist and polemicist. For the most part, though, it's his novels and stories which seem most likely to carry on his name.

GKC as 'Fiddlers Green' in Neil Gaiman's The Doll's House (1990)

Neil Gaiman is probably more directly influenced by Chesterton than most modern fantasy writers (witness the panels above, from his immensely influential Sandman comic), but actually his oblique and paradoxical way of looking at things has had a huge effect on detective fiction as well. Father Brown alone must be responsible for a huge number of quirky amateur investigators, more expert in human psychology than in police procedure.

Actually, the more closely you look, the more pervasive he seems to be - in movies and television as well as writers as disparate as Kingsley Amis (who edited a selection of his stories in the 1970s); Ursula Le Guin (who followed his lead in such fantasies as Threshold (1980) - The Beginning Place in America); and - of course - Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Stephen King, Peter Straub, and a host of other writers who inhabit that debatable border land between the prosaic everyday and the uncanny and marvellous.

I'll conclude, then, with a list of my own Chestertoniana:

Chestertoniana

Poetry & Plays:


1. Magic: A Fantastic Comedy. 1913. The New Adephi Library. London: martin Secker (Ltd.), 1928.


2. Wine, Water & Song: Poems. 1915. Illustrated by Sillince. Introduction by L. A. G. Strong. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1945.


3. Poems. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1923.


4. The Collected Poems. 1927. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1954.


5. Essays and Poems. Ed. Wilfrid Sheed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958.


6. Collected Nonsense and Light Verse. Ed. Marie Smith. 1987. Methuen Humour Classics. London: Methuen, 1988.


7. Collected Poems, Part I. The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 10 (i). Ed. Aidan Mackey. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994.


8. Collected Poetry, Part II. The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 10 (ii). Ed. Denis J. Conlon. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008.


9. Collected Poetry, Part III. The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 10 (iii). Ed. Denis J. Conlon. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010.

Fiction:


10. The Napoleon of Notting Hill. 1904. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1946.


11. The Club of Queer Trades. 1905. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1946.


12. The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare. 1908. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


13. The Annotated Thursday: G. K. Chesterton’s Masterpiece The Man Who Was Thursday. 1908. Ed. Martin Gardner. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999.


14. The Ball and the Cross. London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Ltd., 1910.


15. Manalive. 1912. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1947.


16. The Flying Inn. 1914. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958.


17. The Man Who Knew Too Much and Other Stories. 1922. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1923.


18. Tales of the Long Bow. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1925.


19. The Return of Don Quixote. 1927. G. K. Chesterton Reprint Series, 7. London: Darwen Finlayson, 1963.


20. The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Gabriel Gale. 1929. G. K. Chesterton Reprint Series, 5. London: Darwen Finlayson, 1962.


21. The Father Brown Stories: The Innocence of Father Brown; The Wisdom of Father Brown; The Incredulity of Father Brown; The Secret of Father Brown; The Scandal of Father Brown & The Vampire of the Village. 1911, 1914, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1935, & 1936. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1974.


22. Four Faultless Felons. 1930. G. K. Chesterton Reprint Series, 4. A Delta Book. Beaconsfield: Darwen Finlayson, 1964.


23. A G. K. Chesterton Omnibus: The Napoleon of Notting Hill; The Man Who was Thursday; The Flying Inn. 1904, 1908, 1914, & 1932. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1958.


24. Stories, Essays and Poems. 1935. Introduction by Maisie Ward. 1957. Everyman’s Library, 1913. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1965.


25. The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond. 1937. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., n.d.


26. Selected Stories. Ed. Kingsley Amis. London: Faber, 1972.


27. Short Stories, Fairy Tales, Mystery Stories – Illustrations. The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 14. Ed. Denis J. Conlon. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993.

Non-Fiction:


28. The Defendant. 1902. The Wayfarer’s Library. 1914. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1922.


29. Robert Browning. 1903. English Men of Letters. London: Macmillan & Co, Limited, 1905.


30. Charles Dickens. 1906. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1919.


31. George Bernard Shaw. 1909. Guild Books, 253. London: The British Publishers Guild Ltd. / John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1949.


32. Tremendous Trifles. 1909. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1920.


33. William Blake. The Popular Library of Art. London: Duckworth & Co. / New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., [1910].


34. Criticisms and Appreciations of Charles Dickens’ Works. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. / New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1911.


35. The Victorian Age in Literature. Home University Library of Modern Knowledge. London: Williams & Norgate, / New York: Henry Holt and Company, [1913].


36. Orthodoxy. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head / New York: John Lane Company, 1915.


37. A Short History of England. 1917. Phoenix Library. London: Chatto and Windus, 1938.


38. The Uses of Adversity: A Book of Essays. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1920.


39. The Everlasting Man. 1925. People’s Library Edition. London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1927.


40. The Thing. 1929. London: Sheed & Ward, 1946.


41. Chaucer. 1932. London: Faber, 1965.


42. St. Thomas Aquinas. London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1933.


43. Autobiography. 1936. A Grey Arrow. London: Arrow Books, 1959.

Secondary:

44. Ward, Maisie. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. 1944. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958.

•


J. L. Carstairs: A Chestertonian Still Life