A Most Wanted Man

In a rare public appearance, John le Carre will be talking about his new book A Most Wanted Man at the Southbank Queen Elizabeth Hall, on Wednesday October 1 2008, at 8pm. For details and tickets (£12) telephone Phone 0871 663 2500 or see telegraph.co.uk/lecarre

College History

The Transmitter Issue 2 September / October 2008 contains a review of Jan Piggott's new history of the school Dulwich College a history 1616-2008. The review is written by Jo Akrill and there is a copy in the Common Room and another in the Archives.

Book Lists

On Saturday 20 September 2008, The Telegraph published a list called Villainy - the 50 foulest fiends in literature in the Review section. In at No. 50 was OA Raymond Chandler with Helen Grayle/Velma Valento from Farewell, My lovely. Described as "a blonde (sic) to make a bishop kick a hole on a stained glass window" she leaves a trail of bloody victims in her wake as she tries to hide her past as a flame-haired nightclub singer.

The list, like all lists is very dubious, as Samuel Whiskers from The Tale of Samuel Whiskers by Beatrix Potter comes in at No. 2, behind Satan from Milton's Paradise Lost!

I suspect that the compiler of these lists may have a soft spot for Raymond Chandler as he was listed at No. 4 in The 50 Greatest Crime Writers in April this year, and No. 21 out of 50 Crime Writers to read before you die in February 2008.

Julian Evans champions a little known author

OA (1965-73), Julian EVANS' most recent book Semi invisible man – the life of Norman Lewis has just been published by Jonathan Cape. It is the biography of a writer he feels has been overlooked and is published to coincide with the centenary of his birth. Norman Lewis was the son of a pharmacist from Enfield and was entirely self-taught as a writer. His account of south-east Asia before the Vietnam war, A Dragon Apparent, remains required reading. Voices of the Old Sea, a glimpse of pre-tourist Spain is a classic in the literature of the Mediterranean. His memoir of wartime Naples, Naples `44 is a masterpiece. All are good examples of his revolutionary style and penetration of the glorious and inglorious surfaces of our planet. You can read an obituary of Norman Lewis in The Guardian from 2003.

Julian's previous book Transit of Venus: Travels in the Pacific Secker and Warburg 1992 is an account of a journey to the heart of the US nuclear-missile testing programme.

Julian Evans is the translator of two French Novels and he has written for newspapers and magazines including The Independent, The Guardian, Vogue, GQ, Esquire and Harpers & Queen. He writes and broadcasts on literary subjects and lives in Bristol.

Child 44

Child 44 by Old Alleynian Tom Rob Smith is the current book for the Dulwich College Staff Reading Group. There are two copies in the Archives if anyone would like to borrow a copy, rather than buy one. For more information on this book see the previous thread in June 2007.

Three ways to celebrate 007 in 008

1. Visit For Your Eyes Only an exhibition to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth is at the Imperial War Museum until March 2009. It looks at his war time work in Naval intelligence, where he gathered many of the ideas and plots for his books. Along with artifacts from the Bond films are photographs and his desk from his home in Jamaica, Goldeneye, where he wrote the books.
2. As part of the Dulwich Festival 2008 (9th to 18th May) Ben MacIntyre will be giving a talk in the Linbury Room, Dulwich Picture Gallery on Tuesday 13th May at 7.30pm From Fleming to Bond: the life that led to 007. Ben is a former intelligence officer and reporter for The Times and The Sunday Times. Ben will be exploring the real lives and stories behind the James Bond books. Tickets £10 (£8 for concessions)
   
3. Village Books, 1d Calton Avenue, London SE21 7DE Tel. 020 8693 2808 will have limited signed copies of Sebastian Faulks' new James Bond novel Devil May Care on sale on the 28 May 2008.
   

Children's Book Festival

Dulwich Picture Gallery will play host to Village Book's Fifth Children's Book Festival next weekend - 26th and 27th April.

Saturday 26th
10.30 Jeremy Strong will read from some of his books like The Hundred-Mile an Hour Dog and My brother's Famous Bottom. (5+ AGE RANGE)

1pm A chance to meet Andy Stanton author of the Mr Gum books. (8+)

3pm Robert Muchamore will read from and talk about his gripping Cherub series. (9+)

Sunday 27th
1pm Author of Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian will be reading from and talking about her first new novel in ten years Just Henry. (9+)

3pm Helen Dunmore will be talking about and reading from her Ingo chronicles. (9+)

All events take place in Linbury Room and tickets are £5. To book or for more information contact Village Books, 1d Calton Avenue, London SE21 7DE Tel. 020 8693 2808

Edward Alleyn in the FT

Dale Sumner, OA writes from Spain:
An unusual place to find our Founder is in 6 Down in today's FT crossword:
'Edward Alleyn and a tiger run wild'
A: tragedian (is that the usual description?)
Dale Sumner
PS I know it is a bit early in the day for the Xword - I only gave it a glance when looking at the weather forecast in the European edition and he jumped out at me (that sounds like a schoolboy's excuse)

Mercy, Madness, Pestilence and Death

The Archivist at St Bartholomew's Hospital has asked us to advertise a lecture to be given by Dr Richard Cork on Wednesday 9th April 2008 at 6pm in The Great Hall, North Wing, St Bartholomew's Hospital on art and hospitals from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. The cost of lecture is £15 which will include a drinks reception and a private view of the Hogarth paintings and St Bartholomew's Hospital Museum. The proceeds will be donated to St Bartholomew's Hospital Archives and Museum and Barts and The London Cancer Care Appeal.

Richard Cork is an award-winning art critic, historian, broadcaster and exhibition curator, who writes for the FT and The Guardian. He has organised major exhibitions at the Tate, the Hayward Gallery and the Royal Academy and judged many leading art prizes and commissions, among them the Turner Prize.

To book telephone 020 7 601 8152 or send a cheque made payable to Barts and The London Charity to Richard Cork Lecture, Archives & Museum, North Wing, St Bartholomew's Hospital, London EC1A 7BE.

Imagine - Children's Literature Festival

Unfortunately, this was designed around children who will be on half-term next week. But it does start on the 14th February, so there maybe a chance to catch some of the free performances and workshops at the Southbank Centre. The Sixth Annual Children's Literature Festival is aimed at children between 5 and 11 and runs until the 22nd February. Writiers, poets and performers, including Children's Laureate Michael Rosen and Jeremy Strong will be giving talks, but these do need to be booked and cost £7 for adults and £4.50 for children. Telephone 0871 663 2500 or check the website www.southbankcentre.co.uk for more information.

Not another costume drama!

The work of Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, is dramatised in a new series City of Vice, starting on Channel 4 tonight (Monday 14th January 2008 9pm). However the drama documentary is not based on his literary work, but covers instead the establishment of the Bow Street Runners, with his half brother John Fielding. The Bow Street Runners were a precursor of the police and the first attempt to bring law and order to the chaos and lawlessness of C18th London.

The C18th is also the subject of a series of lectures at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, starting on 29th January 2008 7.45-9.15pm in the Linbury Room with William Hogarth. See their website for more information and to book tickets. Carriages, Carcases and Caricature: the idiosyncrasies of 18th century British art.

Chandler's Long Embrace

The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the woman he loved by Judith Freeman tells the story of Chandler's , marriage to Cissy who was 18 years his senior. Freeman shows how very important Cissy was to Chandler's life and art. In a fine appreciation she plots his life from "an accountant for an oil company into one of the most interesting and original writers America has ever produced."

The book is published by Pantheon and was reviewed by Martin Rubin in The Washington Times on 2 December 2007.

A book about a book

Rejoice my heart edited by Michael H Rosove is the latest offering from Adelie Books, named for the species of penguin, they specialise in publishing books about Antarctica. It is the correspondence between Emily Shackleton and Hugh Robert Mill, between 1922 and 1933 and tells the story behind the writing of Mill's biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton. The title comes from an expression in Emily's second letter, in which she expresses her gratitude to Mill, the greatest Antarctic historian of his time, for accepting the challenge of writing Shackleton's life story, just three months after his death.

Two new books from OA Poet

Anthony Barnett, OA has just published Listening for Henry Crowder, a monograph on his almost lost music with the poems and music on an accompanying CD. Henry Crowder travelled and worked with Nancy Cunard the daughter of the shipping magnate. This book proves that Henry was his own man and not just an adjunct to Cunard; as such he made a uniquely fascinating contribution to the jazz age.

The Archives have just acquired a copy of this book as well as the earlier Would you tread on a quadruped? (1992), in which Barnett's poems form an animal alphabet of questionable rhymes to accompany charming paintings by Natalie Cohen.

Henslowe Alleyn Theatre Papers' Research

Two recent publications which re-interpret the Henslowe Alleyn Theatre Papers have just been published.

The first is Re-locating the Fortune Theatre: a new history by S P Cerasano and is published by Globe Education as part of their Occasional Papers series. It is based on the lecture given by Professor Cerasano at the Fortune Theatre Symposium at the Globe in November 2006, when the Fortune contract from the Henslowe Alleyn Theatre Papers was loaned to Shakespeare's Globe.

The second is the two volume Oxford Middleton which brings together for the first time the Complete Works of Thomas Middleton in one volume and as a companion volume publishes a series of essays on Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture. The general editors are Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino.

William Blake's 250th Anniversary

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Blake, the poet and artist, Radio 4 is broadcasting a series of programmes. All are available with the Listen Again facility.

On Poetry Please Roger McGough introduced some of Blake's lesser known poetical works like the short and lusty 'Are not the joys of morning sweeter' and his tirade 'O for a Voice Like Thunder'. The readers are Samuel West, Janet Suzman and David Collins.

The Afternoon Readings for the week of 26th - 30th November, was a series of short stories entitled Blake's Doors of Perception. The first No Trumpet Needed, written and read by Michael Morpurgo tells the story of the friendship between a cameraman filming on the West Bank and a shepherd boy. The last was May Malone by David Almond, which tells the story of May who keeps a monster in her house and invites young Norman Trench in to see her monster which he has heard by pressing his ear to May's back wall.

The Friday Play was The Tyger Hunt by Lavinia Murray. It imagines a surreal day in the life of the young William Blake. With a runaway tiger on the loose, William is out with his sketch pad to capture the magic of a truly enchanting and extraordinary afternoon.

On Book at Bedtime you can hear Burning Bright by Tracey Chevalier which has been abridged into 10 episodes and tells the story of what happened when Jem Kellaway and his family move from their Dorset home to Lambeth in London, and find themselves living next door to the eccentric but welcoming couple called Blake.

Finally, in The Poet of Albion, historian and biographer Jenny Uglow used William Blake's work to explore the idea that he was a political artist deeply at odds with his country, whose ideas were formed by the turbulent history of the time.

Art meets literature

At the turn of the C20th, a new generation of artist-illustrators brought fresh life to the written word and captured the public's imagination. A new exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery which opens on 28th November and runs to 17th February 2008 The Age of Enchantment explores the magic conjured by the likes of Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen and Charles Robinson (brother of William Heath Robinson). Rodney Engen has written a book to accompany the exhibition he has curated which tells the story of the illustrated gift book which became big business, selling to the wealthy Edwardian middle classes.

The exhibition, like all the recent shows at the Dulwich Picture Gallery has been widely reviewed and should appeal to audiences of all ages. See the Dulwich Picture Gallery website for details of opening times.

Alleyn's Boy Actor

Carol Chillington Rutter from the University of Warwick is lecturing tonight Wednesday 14th November 2007 at Shakespeare's Globe on Pyg, Moth and Little William: Parts for Boys on Shakespeare’s Stage. John Pyg (also spelt Pike or Pigge) was Alleyn's boy actor from his company and also his page. Carol Rutter is the editor of Documents of the Rose Playhouse (Manchester University Press, 1999) and has done research in the Archives at Dulwich College; the Rose was one of the three theatres owned and run by Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn.

Tickets (at £15 or £10 for concessions) for the lecture are available from the Box Office at Shakespeare's Globe online or by telephone on 020 7401 9919.

Posy Simmonds at the Dulwich Picture Gallery

The writier and cartoonist Posy Simmonds will be talking about her latest work Tamara Drewe on Thursday 15th November at 7.30pm in the Linbury Room, Dulwich Picture Gallery. Tickets are £10 or £8 (concessions) you can order them via the website http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/ in person or on the telephone 020 8299 1859

Shakespeare on Silver Street

It is probably just as well that Charles Nicholl did not come to the Archives at Dulwich College to research for his latest book The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street as he might have been sadly misled by the forgeries left by John Payne Collier in the nineteenth century. Payne Collier, a Shakespeare scholar of some repute and standing was very frustrated by the lack of documentary evidence concerning Shakespeare and the Henslowe-Alleyn Theatre Papers at Dulwich proved too much of a temptation. He inserted Shakespeare's name on two lists of residents on Bankside and made a false reference to King Lear on the Costume List.

Charles Nicholl's new book, published by Allen Lane deals with a much more reliable source, a record from the May 1612 Court of Requests, in which Shakespeare is a witness. From this one document Nicholl has woven a whole book about Shakespeare's life while lodging in a house in Silver Street, now destroyed, which ran east of Aldgate and north of Cheapside in early C17th London.

Oxfam Poetry Reading, 16 November

On the evening of Friday 16th November the College will be hosting a poetry reading to raise funds for Oxfam which will feature some of the UK’s best known poets. The reading is one of a number planned to coincide with the launch of Life Lines 2, Poets for Oxfam, a CD anthology. Life Lines 1 was a great success and has sold in excess of 10,000 copies with all profits going to the charity. Life Lines 2 will be launched at The Cheltenham Festival of Literature on Friday 5th October.

We are very privileged to welcome to the College six poets who have recorded work for the CDs: Wendy Cope, Blake Morrison, Daljit Nagra, Fiona Sampson and Todd Swift, as well as Dr Jonathan Ward who teaches English here. It will take place in the Great Hall, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £6 for adults (£4 concessions) and a special rate of £3 for boys at the College. All proceeds – including money raised from sales of CDs on the night – will be donated to Oxfam.

This is an extraordinary opportunity to hear some very well known poets and we very much hope you will be able to join us on what promises to be a memorable night. Oxfam has been selected as the Dulwich College charity this term and two poets – Daljit Nagra and Fiona Sampson – will be visiting selected English classes during the day.

A Fool's Life

Akutagawa Ryunosuke's A Fool's life has been translated from the Japanese by Anthony Barnett, OA and Toraiwa Naoko. Akutagawa's writings include reworkings of motifs and tales of China's and Japan's past, modern fables, essays and a few autobiographical fictions which, like A Fool's Life, follow his intense engagement and difficulty with the world. He ended his brief life the month after completing A Fool's Life.

Anthony Barnett is not the first Old Alleynian to publish translations from Asia, EB Howell (1893-1897), translated Chin Ku Ch'i Kuan The Inconstancy of Madam Chuang and other Stories from the Chinese in the 1920's.

Anthony Barnett will be one of the subjects of an exhibition on Old Alleynian poets in the Wodehouse Library in February 2008.

The Immortal Jeeves

Jeeves' first appearance was in 1915 and PG Wodehouse's last Jeeves novel was published in 1974. In The Times on Saturday 29 September 2007, Martin Jarvis describes the challenge of re-creating the enduring and inimitable valet. Martin Jarvis will be appearing at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival on Sunday October 7 at 6pm. His performance of two Wodehouse readings will be broadcast later this year on BBC Radio 4. For more information see the festival website or call 01242 227979.

Spirit and Fire

Sue Hampton, who used to teach English at Dulwich College (under her maiden name Duffield) has just had her first novel for children published by Pegasus. It is aimed at 8-12 year olds, an age group she should be familiar with as she taught the first ever class of eight year olds at Dulwich. Spirit and Fire is set in AD 60 and tells the story of a young Celtic girl Aifa, caught and sold into slavery in London. Her father's nickname for her is Mouse, a term of endearment also used by Edward Alleyn for his first wife, Joan Woodward. If you would like to read the book, a copy is available in the Archives.

Villainously Good Reading

Simon & Schuster are hosting a free event at 6:30 pm on October 17 at the T Bar in Shoreditch High Street. Authors Paul Bajoria, Linda Buckely Archer, Justin Somper and Matt Whyman will be discussing the importance and pitfalls of literary villains. Email penelopewebber@penelopewebber.plus.com or call 7316 1979 to apply for a ticket.

Michael Ondaatje (OA)

... will be talking about his new novel, Divisadero, at the UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AH on Thursday 27 September at 7 pm. Tickets cost £7 (£5 concessions) - ring 0845 456 9876. It is part of a series of Blackwell Events running over the autumn. Others include author Susanna Clarke (25 Sept) and Michael Palin (26 Sept).
for further information see http://www.blackwell.co.uk/.

Elizabeth 1 and the culture of writing

Dr Grace Ioppolo and her husband, Peter Beal, are the editors of a new book of essays Elizabeth 1 and the culture of writing, published by the British Library, which sheds light on the role Elizabeth I played as an author herself and as a muse to her subjects in the 'golden' period of English literature. Dr Ioppolo is the director of the project to digitise the Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn theatre papers in the Archives at Dulwich College. Her essay is on the correspondence between the Queen and the Earl of Essex (the Hulton Letters). Henry Woudhuysen is Professor of English at University College, London and the father of an Alleynian. He is also a member of the digitisation project team and his essay is an introduction to the Queen's own writings. Peter Beal's essay is concerned with Elizabeth's execution warrants, he is another member of the digitisation project team.

Dulwich Children's Book Festival

The fourth annual Children's Book Festival will take place over the weekend of the 6th and 7th of October at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. This is an opportunity for children and adults to meet authors and listen to them talking about books and writing.

Saturday 6th October
10.30am Linbury Room £5
David Gilman author of The Devil's Breath will be letting children of 9+ into the secrets of surviving in the African desert.
1pm Linbury Room £5
Louise Arnold author of the hugely popular Invisible Friend series will be talking to children from 7+.
3pm Linbury Room £5
Sally Gardner, author of I, Coriander, will be reading from and talking about her new novel The Red Necklace, for the 12+ age range.

Sunday 7th October
10.30am Linbury Room £3.50
For the 4-7 year olds there will be some sparkling fairy fun at the Felicity Wishes Party.
10am-12 noon Sackler Centre £3.50
Story Telling for the 3-5 year olds
1pm Linbury Room £5
Marcus Sedgwick, author of the Carnegie shortlisted My Swordhand is Singing will be telling the 12+ about his new novel Blood Red Snow White based on Arthur Ransome's time in revolutionary Russia.
3pm Linbury Room £5
Steve Cole will be telling tales of Astrosaurs and Cows in Action for the 5+ age range.

Tickets for any of these are available from: Village Books, 1D Calton Avenue, Dulwich Village SE21 or call 020 8693 2808