Siderealpress

#skull #skullsunday #mementomori

Recent reading. The usual mix of new books and re-reads. New is the latest anthology from @sarobpress ‘Votive Offerings’ with stories by Peter Bell, John Howard, Mark Valentine and Colin Insole- the latter the best of this bunch. Mark Valentine’s latest collection of essays @tararuspress is always a great read and led me the Harold Hobson novel which has the somewhat unlikely combination of cricket and (mythical) 1890s decadent poet @enochsoames . Its an odd read, partly because I know and care little for cricket. The seller of the Hobson kindly sent me a signed copy of his biography of @frederickbeauclerk (1773-1850), gentleman, clergyman, and rogue, who was one of the greatest amateur cricketers of his generation. Its probably great if you like cricketing history and the statistics associated with it. The first to ask (from the UK) gets my copy for free. Dont be shy! Decadence continues with the 1890s magazine ‘The Dome’ (one of the best follow-ups to the path laid by ‘The Yellow Book’), then fast-forward 70(ish) years to Darren Coffield’s @queensofbohemia.co.uk biography of Henrietta Moraes, a party girl and sometime model for both Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. She was one of the super-heavy drinkers/partiers at the legendary Colony Rooms (and other Soho bars), and Coffield’s book naturally includes much about the milieu she moved in and makes some interesting connections between characters. Rebecca Gransden’s novella (from the ever -interesting @tangerine_press angerinepress) is an experimental post-apocalyptic dystopian novella. It felt somewhat heavy going at first but if you liked the oddness of Flesh (see my earlier post) you might like this. Finally, my two re-reads- both excellent. Asti Hustvedt’s book about the women associated with Charcot and theories of Hysteria and early psychology is essential (and fascinating) reading, while the Fedor Sologub (1863-1927) collection of short stories is full of psychological breakdown and madness leaning towards (but not quite arriving at) horror/weird fiction. An unjustly neglected author... #weirdfiction #charcot #markvalentine #colonyrooms #henriettamoraes

The Cult of Corvo. Re-reading 'Baron Corvo' (Frederick Rolfe 1860-1913) its hard (at least for me) to see why we should really care much about him nowadays, let alone accord him the status of a cult following in certain (albeit almost cult-like themselves!) book circles. For the unitiaited, Rolfe was a seemingly gifted but troubled man who ardently desired to enter the Catholic Church as a priest but, for reasons unknown, was expelled from the seminary after only a few weeks. After stalled careers as a teacher and artist, he maintained a precarious career as an author, ultimately moving to (and dying) in Venice. Rolfe seemed to have a gift for making friends who would support him with book advances or loans of money but this was tempered with a gift for falling out with them and once that had occured he would never let it lie, gaining revenge by writing very thinly veiled portraits of them into his semi-autobiographical, wish forfilling novels using the most abusive, vindicative and libellous language. Thus, in 'Hadrian the Seventh', a failed writer and rejected candidate for the priesthood is, by a series of strange events, elected Pope; 'Nicolas Crabbe' (posthumously published) follows the career of a poor author exploited by various publishers and friends while in 'The 'Desire and Pursuit of the Whole' a poor author, rescues a girl who he dresses as a boy and falls in love with while (of course!) looking back at the circumstances of his thwarted career. In their defence, all these books include some excellent descriptive writing, but this is offset (or enhanced, depending on your taste) by archaic and obscure words (some invented by Rolfe), liberal use of Latin and Greek, much snarky sniping (old scores settled numerous times) and loose plotting. They are quite bonkers/silly, not in a good way, and way too solipsistic for my liking. It's possible that Rolfe would have been forgotten were it not for A.J.A. Symonds groundbreaking 1932 biography of him, which is as much about the author's own 'Quest for Corvo' as about Rolfe himself. Symonds relates Rolfes admittedly odd life (I particularly like the bit where (cnt in comments)

A selection of images from The Dome (1887 to 1900). When one thinks of magazines of the 1890s the titles that spring to mind are The Yellow Book and The Savoy. But after the demise of The Yellow Book the void was filled by a number of other periodicals. Some of them only ran for a few issues, for example The Acorn (two issues) but others such as The Dome ran for a good number of years (1897-1905) and picked up where The Yellow Book left off. The contents included prose and images by the likes of Laurence Housman, Gleeson White, ‘Fiona McCloud’, Arthur Symons, W.B. Yeats, W.T. Horton, T Sturge Moore etc etc. I’m SELLING four bound volumes (1,3,4 and 5) as part of the ongoing downsizing of my collection. DM me for more details and images. I’ve also a reading copy of the first Acorn on the ebay…(smiththings) #1890s #rarebooks #modernistmagazines #laurencehousman

A few images from Haydn Mackey’s rare self published book of art/text ‘La Grande Ducasse Drolatique’ (1922). It’s a large format (285x385mm) softcover issued, I think, in an edition of about 200 copies. Mackey was a friend and associate of Austin Osman Spare and wrote a collection of reminisces of him. #haydnmackey #rarebooks #limitededition #selfpublished #austinosmanspare

Recent reading #2 The usual mixed bag, even more so than usual, because a number of these books have been gifted to me by pals. A bit of a European theme at present, upfront and central being Hans Fallada's 'Iron Gustav'. Set in the Germany of WWI and its aftermath, the (lengthy) novel follows the physical and moral fortunes of a family, (especially its patriarch 'Iron' Gustav) as it navigates the period. If you only think of Weimar as Berlin decadence, this book shows another world of hardship and deprivation. I loved it as much as I loved Fallada's 'Alone in Berlin' and that was a book of the year for me. Much as I enjoy 'The Golem', I find Meyrink's other novels long-winded, so I enjoyed his decidedly odd short stories more, even though they are not fully 'weird' and perhaps owe more to the Sci-fi genre. Patchy at times but occasionally quite brilliant. Huysmans 'Saint Lydwine of Schiedam', is a hagiography of saintly body horror, with Huysmans dwelling (perhaps a little too lushly) on her afflictions, thus it's not for the faint-hearted. This is also Huysmans at his most religious and a lot of theology makes this heavy going at times. You can read it for free online, but I was happy to snap up this fairly hard-to-find first edition. If you care for Dostoyevsky, then 'Summer in Baden-Baden' may be for you. It's modernist, stream of consciousness stuff and fairly plotless and after persevering for about a third of it gave up. For similar reasons, I got through even less of Richard Hell's 'Godlike', which I found too pretentious and self-indulgent for its (and my) own good. I also struggled a little with Hugh Ford's 'Published in Paris', which surveys the modernist small press phenomenon of 1920s Paris. I don't get on with either James Joyce or Gertrude Stein, but the book is redeemed by very interesting pieces on the Black Sun (Harry and Caresse Crosby) and Obelisk Presses of Harry and Caresse Crosby and the Obelisk of Jack Kahane. As an accumulator of books, I usually enjoy bibliographic material, such as paper types and limitation runs, but these are a distraction from the more enjoyable biographical material. [Continued in comments]

Recent reading #1 It has been my pleasure to (re)read these English language editions of ‘Der Orchideengarten’ in print form. As some of you may know, Joe Bandel has been undertaking the mammoth task of translating these seminal weird fiction magazines. They are best known for the great artwork but as the majority of it was specifically drawn for the stories they illustrate they suffer from lack of context without them. The stories themselves are quite pulpy but decidedly odd at times which gives them a freshness despite being over a century old. These new editions look quite smart in glossy covers and are available from Joe’s website alongside many other newly translated German weird fiction texts a lot of which are available for free. He is a busy man! #joebandel #weirdfiction #derorchideengarten #germantranlation

A #coloroutofspace (!?) In #whitleybay (??!!) #hplovecraft

19th century German apothecary label. #skull #skullsunday #mementomori

Books of the year. This year (excluding online & kindle items) I've read about fifty new books which is down on previous years. Of these, three of the four I've chosen for this year's 'best of' are by authors I've previously read. Modesty does not prevent me from saying I published two of them in my own (now o/p) anthology 'The Dusk'. I have rambled on about R. Ostermeier and Broodcomb Press so often it's surely no surprise that 'You're Only As Happy As Your Saddest Child' is here. A mix of old and new material, odd, disturbing and surreal - its an essential purchase for lovers of the weird. Sadly, the h/b has sold out although a p/b edition is promised for 2026. Timothy D'arch Smith is an old-school bookseller and bibliographer of the obscure and arcane. 'The Stammering Librarian' is primarily here for its masterly analysis of a copy of Aleister Crowley's 1898 volume 'Acedama' but the other essays touch on The Fortune Press, Edmund John and Montague Summers so a lot to like here. As always, Smith has a hugely entertaining style that makes it informative and fun to read. Fun is also found in Beverley Nichols 'lost generation' novel 'Crazy Pavements'(1927). A few posts back I wrote about its decadent, snobbish, semi-satirical silly plot and characters. It's as light as a champagne bubble and laugh out funny. A seemingly lost/ignored gem. Finally, 'An Anthology of Masks' by Stephen J Clark. Clark is possibly better known for his trilogy of novels issued by Zagava but good though those are, I think his short stories are better. These, like the novels are dark tales of madness and occultism partly drawn upon historical sources and characters. This gives them a strong sense of time and place. Perhaps surprisingly, they are also quite slow burns despite the short story format. It's a hard trick to pull off. Most of this volume consists of reprints from long-unavailable Ex-Occidente, Eageaus and other obscure small press volumes and magazines. This book is a great place to start discovering his work. If I had to pick one overall 'winner' for this year (although all these books are winners!) it would be this.

Recent reading. Here we have TWO new R. Ostermeiers via @broodcomb_press and @mountabraxas and a new (well, reprint plus extras) from Mark Valentine via @tartaruspress . Needless to say, though I will, all are regarded as essential reading in this establishment. The rest is a mixed bunch. I’ve thought Fitzgerald somewhat overated but ‘The Beautiful and the Damned’ is definitely better than ‘...Gatsby’. I’ve the same opinion of Anais Nin and ‘Children of the Albatross’ hasnt altered it. I was also seriously underwhelmed by ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’ by Alfred Doblin, even more so as its two of my friends favourite book but I’m then not really a big fan of modernist (as in more stream of conciousness) writing full stop. The #julianbarnes #johnlecarré , and #yukiomishim were all punts (either gifts or pennies to buy) and all definitely entertaining, but didnt set my world alight. The Mishima volume is (deliberately) comedic. I had no idea that he did such things. The real surprise is ‘The Bass Saxaphone’ by #josephskvorecky - an utterly new name to me. Its two novellas linked by Jazz. Skvorecky was a dissident Czech author and jazz was frowned upon by the authorities and although politics certainly plays a part the title piece is really about the pure joy and release of playing music. Its excellent stuff and nearly a ‘book of the year’ for it but sadly the other work isnt as good and its the overall book that counts in my selection. ‘Full Score’ is an anthology edited by Fytton Armstrong’ ( #johngalsworth ). The lineup gives you a hint of the territory. The Shiel is quite bonkers, the Carter obscure, the Machen charming. The latter appears twice as he provides a postscript to Gawsworth’s own story. I dont recall it being reprinted elsewhere but surely it has. Finally Worthington’s semi-biography of William Seabrook, a writer now remembred more for his sexual proclivities rather than his writing. This is sad, as his early books are hugely entertaining and he knew virtually everybody within the ‘lost generation’ firmament. Sadly ruined by drink. His book ‘Asylum’ about his attempts to kick his habit is well worth reading.

Three images by Henry Weston Keen (1899-1935) as part of a handsome 1824 edition of ‘The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales’ by Richard Garnett. Sadly little is known about Keen (a seemingly common fate for many illustrators) and his published illustrations are limited to four books (including a lovely edition of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray) plus a handful of other lithographs and other images. Some of these appeared in the Austin Osman Spare/Clifford Bax edited journal ‘The Golden Hind’ so he kept good company… #henrykeen #blackandwhiteart #twilightofthegods #goldenhind #austinosmanspare