The London Library Magazine Summer 2018 - Issue 40

Two Hundred and fifty years in the ring

Rick Stroud traces the evolution of the modern circus since its founding in 1768

Letters to mother

The art of correspondence between writers and their mothers is explored by Donald Sturrock

MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018 ISSUE 40

ÂŁ3.50

Hidden Corners Josh Ireland enjoys the Library’s collection of titles on Abyssinia

LEWIS CARROLL Through the Looking-Glass Author’s annotated copy, 1893 Estimate £30,000–50,000 To be sold in The Library of an English Bibliophile, Part VIII.

The Library of an English Bibliophile Part VIII Auction London 9 & 10 July 2018 English Literature, History, Children’s Books & Illustrations Auction London 9 & 10 July 2018

Viewing 6 – 9 July 34–35 NEW BOND STREET, LONDON W1A 2AA ENQUIRIES +44 (0)20 7293 6182 BOOKSLONDON@SOTHEBYS.COM SOTHEBYS.COM/BOOKS

DOWNLOAD SOTHEBY’S APP FOLLOW US @SOTHEBYS #SOTHEBYSBOOKS

Dame Laura Knight, The Dark Pool, 1908–1918, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle © Reproduced with permission of The Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA 2018. All Rights Reserved

VIRGINIA WOOLF an exhibition inspired by her writings

26 May – 16 Sep 2018 pallant.org.uk

Organised by Tate St Ives in association with Pallant House Gallery and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The Great Spectacle 250 Years of the Summer Exhibition

William Powell Frith, A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881 (detail), 1883. Oil on canvas, 102.9 x 195.6 cm. A Pope Family Trust, courtesy Martin Beisly

4 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

The Doric Charitable Trust The John Young Charitable Settlement Virginia Woolf Supporters' Circle

12 June – 19 August Join the RA. Friends go free

The London Library Magazine / issue 40

14

Contents

Rick Stroud looks back 250 years to the first modern circus, opened by Philip Astley in 1768 close to the site that is now Waterloo Station, and offers character sketches of some of the extraordinary individuals who have shaped its history

7 FROM THE director 8 Contributors Summer show, 2017, at the Hippodrome Circus, Great Yarmouth. Photograph © David Street.

18 Donald Sturrock, the editor of the collection of Roald Dahl’s letters to his mother, examines the fascinating and intimate correspondence between writers – from Joyce Grenfell and Sylvia Plath to John Berryman and William Faulkner – and their mothers

10 BEHIND THE BOOK The Library’s titles on the position of women during and after the First World War were essential research tools for Lissa Evans’ new novel

13 MY DISCOVERY Daisy Dunn on the magnificent multivolume work The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, which she came across in the Art Room

Roald Dahl watching a school cricket match, 1932. Photograph © Roald Dahl Story Company reproduced by kind permission of The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

14 Two hundred and fifty years in the ring The circus from 1768 to the present day, by Rick Stroud

22

18 letters to mother

The Library’s intriguing range of titles on the kingdom of Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, includes an 1870 travel narrative by two British military figures containing long lists of provisions and works on Mussolini’s invasion in 1936 and the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. Josh Ireland selects some personal favourites.

22 hidden corners

Donald Sturrock on the literary delights of correspondence between writers and their mothers

Josh Ireland’s trawl through History and Topography for titles on Abyssinia yielded some fascinating titles

26 independent libraries series Illustration from Record of the Expedition to Abyssinia by Major Trevenen J. Holland and Captain Henry M. Hozier (2 vols., 1870).

The Mercantile Library in Cincinnati by Cedric Rose

27 MEMBERS’ NEWS

26

30 COSMO DAVENPORT-HINES POETRY PRIZE Theresa Cherukara’s ‘First Love, First Rites’ wins this year’s prize

A regular new feature celebrating historic independent libraries around the world begins with the story of the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati – founded in 1835 and still thriving – described by librarian Cedric Rose

Mercantile Library, Cincinnati. Photograph © Phil Armstrong.

p

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 5

Square miles and circle lines Travel the London Days network From the hidden history of London’s Underground, to an elevated appreciation of the city skyline, Martin Randall Travel’s London Days offer fresh perspective and deeper insight, whether you’re a Londoner or a visitor to the capital.

Spend the day getting to know a different side of London exploring its historical and artistic riches in the company of our experts.

‘The route chosen revealed parts of London completely unknown to me and the unfamiliar vistas of familiar landmarks was a joy.’

Over 40 itineraries, including: London’s Underground Railway The London Backstreet Walk The Ever-Changing City Skyline Great Railway Termini Seven Churches & a Synagogue The Italian Renaissance Caravaggio & Rembrandt

Contact us: +44 (0)20 8742 3355 | martinrandall.com/london-days 6 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

ABTA Y6050 | AITO 5085

p from the director

On the cover

Dan Fortt at Gifford’s Circus, 2017. Photograph

by Andrew Rees, © Gifford’s Circus.

Welcome to our summer issue, which marks the tenth anniversary of the London Library Magazine. During that time over 250 members have written articles, and the 40 issues published to date offer a fantastic insight into the extraordinary range of our members’ interests and ideas.

This issue is no exception – we have Rick Stroud writing on the history of the circus, Daisy Dunn on the Paper Museum, Lissa Evans looks Behind the Book, Donald Sturrock writes on letters to mothers while Josh Ireland reads up on Abyssinia in Hidden Corners.

We also have a feature on the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati, opening up a series of articles that will look at the network of other independent libraries that exist in the UK and elsewhere.

While I was in the US recently, I took the opportunity to visit some of the wonderful subscription libraries they have there, including the Mercantile Library, the Boston Athenaeum, and the New York Society Library. These libraries are funded differently to us due to the benefit of very substantial endowments. However, like us they are all heavily dependent on additional fundraising to supplement their membership income and balance their books.

Programming interesting events is also extremely important to these libraries, establishing opportunities for members to come together in a social setting and to introduce new potential members, just as we are beginning to do here.

I hope you enjoy our summer issue and look forward to seeing you in the Library soon.

Philip Marshall Director

Published on behalf of The London Library by Royal Academy Enterprises Ltd. Colour reproduction by adtec.

Printed by Tradewinds London. Published 15 June 2018 © 2018 The London Library. ISSN 2398-4201.

The opinions in this particular publication do not necessarily reflect the views of The London Library.

All reasonable attempts have been made to clear copyright before publication.

Editorial Publisher Jane Grylls Editor Mary Scott Design and production Catherine Cartwright Picture research Catherine Cartwright

Editorial committee Julian Lloyd Helen O’Neill Peter Parker Philip Spedding Erica Wagner

Advertising Jane Grylls 020 7300 5661 Charlotte Burgess 020 7300 5675 Communications Department, The London Library 020 7766 4704

Magazine feedback and editorial enquiries should be addressed to magazine@londonlibrary.co.uk THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 7

CONTRIBUTORS london library lit Block Stacks Monoprint 14cm x 17cm

Daisy Dunn

Joined the library in 2011

Daisy Dunn is a writer and classicist. She is the author of Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet (2016) and The Poems of Catullus: A New Translation (2016). She is also the editor of the Greek culture journal ARGO, published by the Hellenic Society.

Lissa Evans Joined the library in 2003

Lissa Evans has written three novels for children (most recently Wed Wabbit, 2017, shortlisted for the Costa and Carnegie awards) and five for adults, including Their Finest Hour and a Half (2009, filmed as Their Finest) and Crooked Heart (2014).

Both of the latter are set during the Second World War. Her latest book, Old Baggage, is published this month.

lottie cole

Josh Ireland

Joined the library in 2017

Josh Ireland was born in 1981 and lives in London. After leaving York University with a Masters in history, he worked in publishing for eight years and is now a freelance editor and writer. In 2017 he published his first book, The Traitors.

PRiNtS

On view at London Review of Books Cake Shop 14-16 Bury Pl, Bloomsbury, London WC1A 2JL t. 07971 853 412 View full collection www.lottiecole.com/prints Photograph Ben Blossom.

Cedric Rose Lottie_Cole_LLSum18_v3.indd 1

23/05/2018 15:11

Cedric Rose has been a librarian at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati since 2005, and is also a freelance writer.

With a mother from Philadelphia and father from Colchester, he likes to think of himself as equal parts American and English.

Photograph Meg Vogel.

Rick Stroud Joined the library in 1993

Rick Stroud is a producer, director and writer. His books include Lonely Courage (2017), Kidnap in Crete (2014), The Phantom Army of Alamein (2012) and The Book of the Moon (2009). With Victor Gregg he has co-authored Soldier Spy (2015), King’s Cross Kid (2013) and Rifleman (2011). He is a Trustee of The London Library.

Donald Sturrock

Joined the library

in 2006

Donald Sturrock has made more than 30 documentaries for BBC Television. He has also written six opera libretti and directed opera and theatre. Storyteller, his biography of Roald Dahl, was published in 2010. He edited Love from Boy: Roald Dahl’s Letters to his Mother (2016).

8 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

The Hours of Isabella d’Este, Use of Rome, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Florence), c.1490] Est. £200,000-300,000*

Ghazaliyaat Kan’at alArabi, (Divan of Poetry written in Arabic), in Arabic, illuminated manuscript on blue paper speckled with gold [Safavid Persia (probably Isfahan), second quarter of sixteenth century] Est. £15,000-20,000*

NLINE BIDD EO

M/LIVE

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ENQUIRIES Roxana Kashani +44 (0) 207 839 8880 rkashani@bloomsburyauctions.com Catalogue available online at: bloomsburyauctions.com * Buyer’s premium of 24% (+ VAT )

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VIEWING AT 16-17 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5LU Friday 6 July: 9.30am - 5.30pm Saturday 7 July: 11am - 4pm Sunday 8 July: 11am - 4pm Monday 9 July: 9.30am - 5.30pm Day of sale: from 9.30am

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WESTERN AND ORIENTAL MANUSCRIPTS AND MINIATURES | 10 JULY | 11.00am

UR S YA U I ON CT

Behind the

Book

‘

Lissa Evans describes the publications in the Library that were indispensable for researching her latest novel, published this month by Transworld

’

Lissa Evans’ Old Baggage (2018).

Old Baggage is set in 1928. At its heart is the story of Mattie Simpkin, former militant suffragette and fearless public speaker, possessor of a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. Born in 1870, she has been shaped, bruised and honed by her experiences, which have taken her from a narrow provincial childhood through to the social and political aftermath of the First World War.  Little Innocents: Childhood Reminiscences, preface by Alan PryceJones (London 1932). Biographical Colls.

This collection of first-person vignettes of middle- and upper-class Victorian childhoods features authors as diverse as Lord Alfred Douglas, Charles Cochran, Sylvia Pankhurst and E.M. Delafield. They range from a near-hallucinatory episode in which Edward Sackville-West, dressed as a Persian prince (don’t ask), witnesses the aftermath of a terrible accident, to the fabulously doughty Ethel Smyth on her family’s fanatical love of pets. The pre-eminence and intensity of sibling relationships, in a world in which many were homeeducated, is evident on every page.  Pages from the Diary of a Militant Suffragette by Katherine Roberts (Letchworth 1910). Biog. Roberts.

This semi-fictional account of an ordinary woman’s gradual involvement in militancy was published during the suffragette campaign and is therefore one of those texts that, for a writer of historical fiction, is invaluable: the observations, the vocabulary and the quotidian detail were all compiled while still fresh in the author’s memory, and therefore it acts as a perfect snapshot of the moment.

The book was written ‘to bring in new supporters and reinforce the commitment of those already involved’ and is infused

10 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

with determination, gung-ho spirit, and an unbreakable good-humour: ‘a young woman, wheeling a perambulator, stopped to tell me that she would rather have her baby than a vote. “Well you have neither at present, ” I explained, cheerfully, “For by law you are not recognised as a parent”. ’ The later, grimmer years of the campaign – years of force-feeding, of fugitives, of arson and of bombing – were still ahead.  Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men in the First World War by Virginia Nicholson (London 2007). S. Women.

Sixty per cent of members of the WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union, the Pankhurst-led militants) were spinsters.

Many women of that generation never married – some by choice (‘I had no vocation for wifehood or motherhood, ’ said Margaret Bondfield, a suffragist and later an MP), some because a fiancé had been killed in the war, and some because, after the slaughter had ended, there were simply not enough men left to go around. Nicholson’s book – a study of these ‘surplus women’ – is fascinating and often very moving. Poorly paid, denied a pension, their career opportunities narrow, their promotion limited, spinsters were popularly regarded as either comic or tragic, and yet the achievements of this cohort were astonishing – there were MPs, campaigners

of every stripe, teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, academics and writers. As one of Winifred Holtby’s characters declared in South Riding (1936): ‘I was born to be a spinster, and by God, I’m going to spin. ’  The Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866–1928 by Elizabeth Crawford (London 1999).

R.R. Dicts., History.

This mighty work, lucid, rich in detail, beautifully produced and endlessly fascinating, was the bedrock of much of my research, its rigorous crossreferencing gliding me from one entry to another (sometimes for hours) – from biographies, to songs, to societies, to novels, to the spectacle of processions, to the brutality and camaraderie of prison life. Many of the biographical entries are rounded out from prison diaries and personal correspondence, and are thus the antithesis of dry information; the subsequent direction of the campaigners’ lives is often revelatory. Perhaps the most touching detail is found in the introduction, when Crawford cites suffragettes’ wills as an invaluable source when building up a picture of feminist networks. Many of the unmarried campaigners maintained lifelong friendships with one another, and left their money and possessions to old comrades. The circle was unbroken.

T. S. Eliot International Summer School 7–15 July | Senate House, University of London The T.S. Eliot International Summer School welcomes everyone with an interest in the life and work of this Bloomsbury-based poet, dramatist, and man of letters.

The Summer School brings together some of the most distinguished scholars of T.S. Eliot and modern literature. This year’s programme features an opening address by award-winning Irish novelist Colm Tóibín, a poetry reading by Dame Carol Ann Duffy, and lectures and seminars by John Xiros Cooper, Anthony Cuda, Frances Dickey, Mark Ford, Lyndall Gordon, John Haffenden, Dame Hermione Lee, William Marx, Seamus Perry, Jahan Ramazani, Ronald Schuchard, and Hannah Sullivan. Highlights include excursions to Burnt Norton and Little Gidding as well as a walking tour of Eliot’s London.

ies.sas.ac.uk/tseliot

Accompanying this major new exhibition, Bodleian Library Publishing presents three new publications.

Get the highlights!

Rare chance to own a piece of the Tolkien archive A unique keepsake of this landmark exhibition, the Collector’s Edition of Tolkien: Maker of Middleearth is bound in deluxe cloth and includes seven exclusive facsimiles from Tolkien’s original papers, some of which have never before been shown in full (both sides).

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VISIT THE EXHIBITION Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford 1 June – 28 October 2018 http://tolkien.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

With over 300 images, a third of which have never been seen in public, this exquisitely produced catalogue draws together the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien – scholarly, literary, creative and domestic – offering a rich and detailed understanding and appreciation of this extraordinary author.

416 pages, 259 x 237mm Hardback £40 Paperback £25, from the Bodleian Shop

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST publishing@bodleian.ox.ac.uk THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 11

Q. What do Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Joyce and Ivy Compton-Burnett have in common?

A. They all received grants from the Royal Literary Fund.

Royal Literary Fund Registered Charity no. 219952

12 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

MY DISCOVERY The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo Daisy Dunn describes a catalogue raisonné she tracked down in the Art Room ‘The Paper Museum’ is a wonderful title.

I kept noticing it in bibliographies of art histories and became so intrigued that I decided to track it down. As I reached for the highest shelf in the Art Room of the Library I was picturing a museum made from the thickest bond – a great sugar-lump of a building, with papier-mâché furniture and origami lamps. I spent the next 15 minutes at the top of the stepladder, so absorbed in my reading that I had quite forgotten I was hovering some 6 feet above the floor.

The Paper Museum, it transpired, was not one book but a multivolume museo of collected drawings and prints. I retrieved one title on Fungi and another on Citrus Fruit. Once I had had my fill of porcini and pink-flowered Lisbon Sweet Lemons I proceeded to the curious Aztec Herbal, which contains some of the foulest recipes I have ever seen: grind the stem of the plant known as Tetzmitl (sedum praealtum) with ‘the little stone, either white or purple, which is found in the stomach of a swallow’ and the bird’s blood to produce a lotion

to reduce swollen eyes. A further volume in the series takes a more sympathetic look at Birds, Other Animals and Natural Curiosities.

The Paper Museum was the project of Cassiano dal Pozzo, a patron who was born in Turin in 1588. Cassiano trained as a lawyer, but his passions were art and science; he counted Galileo among his close friends. He found work as secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini and was successful enough to commission artists to make detailed drawings, watercolours and prints of buildings, plants and animals from all over Italy. He sought to document as many items from history and the natural world as he could. The final few volumes of his 7,000 drawings and prints are yet to be published – the project is ongoing at the Warburg Institute in Bloomsbury under the auspices of the Royal Collection – but I’ve found drawings of dozens of the ancient buildings I’ve explored in Rome in the ones already released.

The volumes on classical and Renaissance architecture have truly held

me captivated. There are wonderfully understated pen-and-ink drawings of the doors of the Pantheon and clever elevations of Hagia Sophia by the so-called Codex Ursinianus Copyist. Some of the drawings show details in the friezes and entablatures of ancient buildings which have since decayed. Quite by chance, I have even discovered in one of the volumes a drawing of a villa I was researching for a book.

Cassiano’s drawings were so numerous that they called for new systems of classification. They were grouped and regrouped in his lifetime and provided an important resource for contemporary scientists and historians. When Cassiano died in 1657, the Paper Museum passed down through his brother’s family before being sold to Pope Clement XI. Later, George III paid a sizeable sum to bring many of the drawings to England. Some have stayed in the Royal Collection, some are now in the British Museum and at Sir John Soane’s Museum, and others have been acquired by private collectors. As wonderful as it is to see the originals, it is incredibly helpful to have the copies collected in one place.

My arms were aching from the weight of Renaissance and Later Architecture and Ornament by the time I left the Art Room.

It would be impractical for me to carry any of the volumes home, but no matter; a catalogue raisonné is hardly something one wants to read from cover to cover. I’ve taken to retrieving one volume at a time to explore whenever I’ve a half-hour to spare. In the coming months, I’ll be turning to botanical manuscripts and classical mosaics. I plan to be as cultivated as Cassiano before the year is out.

Watercolour, c.1625, Windsor, Royal Library, from Flora: The Aztec Herbal (2009), Part B.VIII of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo (20 Parts in 3 Series, Royal Collection Trust, 1996–ongoing). © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2018.

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 13

Two Hundred and Fifty Years in the Ring In this anniversary year of the founding of the modern circus, Rick Stroud admires the courage and determination displayed by circus troupes over the centuries Circus has played an important part in my adult life. When my daughter, Nell, was growing up she insisted that she wanted to be ‘a monkey trainer’ and had a rich fantasy relationship with a group of imaginary monkeys to whom she regularly wrote long letters. Before going to Oxford she went to America and worked for a year as a labourer in Circus Flora.

Four years later she left New College, with a first-class honours degree in English Literature, and headed straight for the south-east of England to work as a skivvy for a charming but run-down operation called Circus Santus. For the next ten years Nell worked her way up the circus tree.

Starting as a muck shoveller, she graduated to the ring, riding elephants and horses, and finally became the ringmaster. Today she is the founder, owner and artistic director of Gifford’s Circus, which for the last ten years has toured the south of England playing three shows a day in an eight-hundred-seat tent. Dressed in a gorgeous costume, Nell opens each performance by cantering into the ring on a white stallion that greets the cheering audience by rearing on its hind legs.

One afternoon last winter, I was waylaid in The London Library by a shelf in Science & Miscellaneous that I had not noticed before, S. Circus, a collection of about 20 books. I could not resist spending some time browsing the titles. I took down The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus by Linda Simon (2014), which fell open at a painting of a nearly naked female acrobat frozen in what appeared to 14 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

Opposite Nell Gifford opening a performance of Gifford’s Circus, 2017.

Photograph by Gem Hall, © Gifford’s Circus.

Right Drawing by Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Pugin of Astley’s Amphitheatre for Rudolf Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808–11).

be a backward somersault, her erotically arched body balanced on the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. The image dates from 1300 BCE to 1200 BCE and is on a fragment of pottery now in the Museo Egizio in Turin. I turned the page and read on to find that similar figures can be found in ancient civilisations from all over the Western world. In Rome, acrobats and jugglers provided light entertainment between the more serious stuff of chariot racing and gladiatorial combat.

The early Christian writer Tertullian, in his book De Spectaulis (c.197–202), claimed that the first circus was staged by the goddess Circe in honour of her father, Helios the Sun God. The word ‘circus’ appears in English in the fourteenth century and derives from the Latin circus, which is a romanisation of the Greek kirkos, meaning circle or ring. It is all too tempting then to think that the roots of the modern circus can be traced back to ancient Rome or even Greece. But Roman circuses, such as the Circus Maximus, were really the precursors of the Grand National or the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The first modern circus was established two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1768, by Philip Astley, a largerthan-life cavalryman over six foot tall, with a strong commanding voice and a reputation as a daredevil. Astley had served with distinction in the Seven Years’ War, reaching the rank of sergeant-major. When discharged in 1766 he was presented with a strong, well-put-together grey horse with which he decided to make his living.

At the time a craze for ‘trick riding’ was sweeping England. Astley toured the country displaying his equestrian skills and swordsmanship. He could make his horse feign death, fire a pistol and appear to perform mind-reading tricks. He was not the first to realise that if he cantered his horse in a tight circle he could use the centrifugal force to stand on its back and execute seemingly impossible acrobatics.

By 1768 he had made enough money to open a riding school near Westminster Bridge, close to the site that is now Waterloo Station, giving riding lessons in

the morning and staging entertainments in the afternoon. At first the school was a simple open-air ring surrounded by seats.

Astley went on to build covered stands so that the audience could sit in the dry, paying two pounds and sixpence for a box, or sixpence for a seat in the gallery.

The ring itself was unprotected from the elements until Astley had the idea of putting on a roof so performances could go on whatever the weather or time of day. He named the school Astley’s Amphitheatre Riding House. He went on to build amphitheatres in 19 British cities as well as Dublin and Paris. The horsemen were the stars of the show but jugglers, clowns, tumblers, rope dancers, magicians and conjurors were brought on between the daring riding acts. By 1780 Astley no longer performed himself but controlled what happened in the ring, thus inventing the role of ringmaster.

Astley’s success attracted competitors, including another ex-soldier, Charles Hughes. Charles Dickens described Hughes as ‘a fine stalwart fellow, who could have carried an ox away on his shoulders and afterwards eaten him for supper’ . In 1782 Hughes built a stone amphitheatre south of the Thames at St George’s Circus, a crossroads of three main thoroughfares leading to Westminster, Blackfriars and London Bridges, calling it the Royal Circus, Equestrian and Philharmonic Academy; this was the

first time that the word ‘circus’ had been associated with performance. The building had a ring and a full-size stage, so that ‘ring and stage might be united’ . Visitors to the Royal Circus could expect to be entertained by spectacular riding, clowns, jugglers, magicians and pantomimes, while bands played music. The amphitheatre design became the standard until the second half of the nineteenth century. One still exists and thrives in Great Yarmouth, the Hippodrome Circus. Lillie Langtry, Max Miller and Harry Houdini performed there, Lloyd George gave speeches there and it has played host to the Moscow State Circus, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and BBC One’s Question Time. Acrobats and trapeze artists swing from its domed roof while far below aquatic spectacles are mounted in the flooded ring.

In 1792 one of Hughes’s performers, another ex-cavalryman, John Bill Ricketts, left to go to America, heading for Philadelphia. On 3 April 1793 he opened the first American circus in an uncovered wooden building, holding eight hundred people sitting in boxes or standing round a forty-two-foot-diameter ring. Ricketts wanted to provide entertainment which was suitable for children, an unusual ambition for the time. George Washington visited and became a fan.

When yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia, Ricketts took his circus on tour and by 1798 had performed and built THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 15

Left The Hippodrome in Great Yarmouth, Britain’s only surviving complete circus building, built in 1903 by the showman George Gilbert.

Photograph © David Street.

Below Poster for the Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on Earth, 1897. Photograph © Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Opposite Lillian Leitzel and clown, 1925. Photograph © Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

circuses in New York, Boston, Montreal and Quebec. Several of his circus theatres were destroyed by fire, and he went bankrupt. Ricketts was lost at sea returning to England in 1800.

In April 1871 the people of New York State and New England were inundated with leaflets advertising the P.T. Barnum Museum, Menagerie and Circus, International Zoological Garden, Polytechnic Institute and Hippodrome.

Ticket-holders were led through a series of tents containing a menagerie, magicians, mechanical wonders and freaks until they 16 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

arrived in a big top where they sat and were entertained by galloping horses, clowns, jugglers, acrobats and whatever other acts Barnum and his agents could sign up.

P.T. Barnum was a 60-year-old chancer.

He had made and lost fortunes as a publisher, banker, land developer and impresario. At the age of 25 he hired a blind and almost paralysed black woman and put her on show, claiming that she was 160 years old. Barnum worked her 12 hours a day and when she died he staged a public autopsy, charging spectators 50 cents to see the body cut up. In 1850, on a visit to England, he met the singer Jenny Lind and offered her one thousand dollars a night to come and sing in America. The tour netted Barnum nearly £15m dollars in today’s money.

In 1871 Barnum had the idea to move his circus on specially built railroad cars travelling from city to city by night. The trains carried everything the show would need, including tents, machinery and accommodation for the artists, animals and stage crew. After the last performance of the day, his huge tents were torn down and the mile-long train loaded up and sent steaming into the night. The next day the stage crew got to work rebuilding the whole thing while the acts paraded through the town, drumming up business for the evening performance. Barnum’s engineers evolved ingenious methods for loading circus wagons on to flat-bed railroad cars.

The same techniques were still in use over a hundred years later. At the end of the first season Barnum’s train, which was 65 cars long, had played 3 performances a day in 145 cities. The enterprise was a huge success and Barnum bought hundreds more horses, hired more acts and bought his own trains. He added another ring to sell more tickets and renamed the show P.T. Barnum’s Great Travelling Exposition and World’s Fair, Menagerie, Caravan, Hippodrome, Polytechnic Institute, National Portrait Gallery, Hall of Classic Statuary, Mechanics and Fine Arts, Garden of Zoology and Ornithology. He later shortened this to the Greatest Show on Earth.

By now circuses in America and Europe were getting bigger and bigger.

Two-, three- and even seven-ring shows appeared. Wild animals were introduced, with spangled performers risking their lives in cages filled with lions, tigers and bears, while elephants were trained to perform comedy routines. The shows themselves got more ambitious. Huge historical pageants, shipwrecks, battles, the life of Alexander the Great or the destruction of Rome were all on offer. For the circus impresario, bigger was better.

In 1859 the New York Times reported that a new acrobatic act had appeared at the Cirque Napoléon in Paris, where a young man called Jules Léotard could be seen performing dangerously high in the

two hundred and fifty years in the ring air. Léotard came from Toulouse where his father had a gymnasium and pool. One day Léotard noticed that there were two ropes hanging from a roof ventilator. He tied them to a wooden bar and invented the trapeze. By the time he got to Paris he had devised an act in which he somersaulted between three trapezes, flying through the air high above the crowd. He had no safety net, although the management had insisted that he place mattresses on the ground to cushion him should he fall. Léotard wore a tight sleeveless costume which took his name and has been the outfit for acrobats ever since. Thanks to Léotard, acrobats, not horses, became the stars of the show.

One legendary acrobat was the German, Lillian Leitzel, whose mother, grandmother and aunts were all aerialists.

Born in 1892, she spoke several languages and had trained as a concert pianist before joining her mother’s act, the Leamy Ladies. Leitzel had an ideal physique for an acrobat: she was strong, light and tiny.

Leitzel dressed herself in silk tights and a diaphanous short skirt, her midriff bare, her long hair tied up and golden shoes on her feet. She was carried into the ring by a powerful man, her diminutive size making him look like a giant. She was followed by a woman acting as her French maid.

When the strong man put her down Leitzel staggered and appeared to swoon, putting her hand on her heart as if summoning up courage for the ordeal ahead. Then, with the spotlight on her, she climbed ‘the web’ , the ropes hanging from the roof of the tent. At the climax she was hauled to the roof, where she stood on a small platform lit by a single, dazzling spotlight. Drums rolled as the petite figure slipped her hand into a padded loop attached by a swivel to a hanging rope which she slowly swung round and round. As the rope gained momentum the audience chanted, while more dramatic drumrolls increased the tension. Finally Leitzel hurled herself into the abyss, a part of the act known as the ‘full-arm plange’ or ‘dislocate’ as it caused the bones in her right shoulder to dislocate, with only the strength of her muscles snapping them back into place. High above the crowd she spun, her long hair flaming behind her like a golden comet tail. One spectator said she looked like a ‘pastel doll spinning in a halo of flame’ . Leitzel admitted that, like many aerialists, she had a desire to let go: ‘I had to fight it … you’re

spinning around way up there, holding by one hand, and all of a sudden you hear a little nagging voice – Why not let go?

I’ve never managed to get over it. ’ On 13 February 1931 one of the swivels holding her rope broke, and she fell 40 feet to the floor of the ring. Apparently uninjured, she was taken to hospital where she died. She was 39 years old. One obituary described her as the queen of the circus and said that she would be welcomed into heaven by a celestial drumroll.

Outside the Library, night had fallen and it had begun to snow. A collection of less than two dozen books had lured me into a dream-world of bright lights, noise and glamour, of bravery and daring, of clowns and laughter, bands, parades, pretty girls and fortunes won and lost.

My mind reeled with small facts: that ‘clown’ may derive from a word meaning clumsy peasant, and that the harlequin character once carried a wand called a slapstick that he used to magically make

acts start and stop; that David Garrick despised circus performances, finding them an ‘abomination in the house of Shakespeare’; and that in 1840 the English showman Thomas Cooke brought the idea of a travelling tented circus from America to England. I had to stop. The Library was closing and my desk needed clearing.

I left the stacks and returned to the silence of the Reading Room, feeling the gulf that separates the writer from the circus performer. The essayist E.B. White, who was fixated by circus, wrote that ‘out of its wild disorder comes order; from its rank smell rises the good aroma of courage and daring; out of its preliminary shabbiness comes the final splendour’ .

He felt that he had failed in his attempts to describe it, but added: ‘a writer, like an acrobat, must occasionally try a stunt that is just too much for him. ’ I realised that my afternoon with Science & Misc., Circus had taught me a lesson: tomorrow I must try harder and dare more.

.

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 17

letters to mother

‘

Donald Sturrock examines the published collections of correspondence between writers and their mothers Many London Library members will have lamented the decline, possibly even demise, of the art of letter-writing. The email certainly now dominates business correspondence, but the personal letter, though endangered, is not yet extinct.

A letter, as we are now discovering, is safer and more secure than an email.

It’s still perfect for declarations of love, confessions, and other contexts where the need for privacy is paramount and the writer wants to show themselves at their most vulnerable. It has its own rituals.

For the sender, there is the sealing of the envelope and the attaching of the stamp, the trip to the pillar box, the exquisite delay, and then, for the receiver, the intriguing swoosh or clunk as the post falls through their letter-box. A letter is more personal than an email. It’s also more theatrical. It’s no wonder that so many writers have also been great letter-writers.

Most began writing when they were young, usually to their parents. Often the trigger would be a trip abroad or being sent away to boarding school. In both these situations, the correspondents usually cast themselves as an intrepid traveller, telling tales of their adventures to a distant, but familiar, world back home. The pattern might continue into adulthood if sufficient distance separated parent and child. I recently edited a volume of Roald Dahl’s letters to his mother Sophie Magdalene, Love from Boy (2016). The two of them corresponded from his first days at a Somerset prep school, when he was barely nine years old, to her death more than forty years later. The six hundred letters he 18 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

Roald Dahl and his mother corresponded from his first days at a

’

Somerset prep school to her death more

than forty years later

wrote to her between 1925 and 1967 are candid, funny and sometimes extremely touching. They chart a child’s progress into adulthood and give the reader a sense of unguarded intimacy with a writer who is in some respects eternally a child – at least to their correspondent. This can be disturbing. The reader becomes an eavesdropper, an interloper into a private relationship, an observer of things he or she was never meant to see. Trawling through The London Library stacks, however, one becomes aware how individual the correspondence of writers with their mothers can be.

The oldest collection of mother–writer correspondence I looked at was a volume of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s letters, published in 1889, which includes, almost as an afterthought, a collection of letters to his mother. Victorian muscular sensibilities are to the fore in the editor’s mind, and it’s clear he was a great deal more interested

in the poet’s dealing with other literary luminaries than with the intimacy of a mother–son relationship. This is a bit of a surprise, because Katharina Elisabeth Goethe (1731–1808) was a formidable intellect in her own right. Her friend Bettina von Arnim even based the central character of one of her novels, The King’s Book (1843), on Frau Goethe, portraying her as a character with great political initiative who is not afraid to express her progressive views on life.

Johann Wolfgang was Frau Goethe’s first child and the apple of her eye. He attributed his intellectual side to his father, but credited his mother with his ‘happy nature’ and his desire to tell a story. Frau Goethe seems indeed to have been a jolly soul, who calmly tolerated her son’s somewhat patronising manner. When in 1779 he came, aged 30, on a rare visit from Weimar to Frankfurt to visit her, for example, he brought his patron, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, with him. Johann, a bit of a lickspittle where his boss was concerned, sent his mother lengthy and fussy instructions about how she should look after him: ‘He sleeps on a clean straw mattress, over which a fine linen sheet is spread under a light counterpane … Have dinner at midday. Four dishes, no more nor less, no cookery, but your homely art, at its best … Take all the lustreware porcelain out the Duke’s room. It will seem absurd to him. The sconces you may leave. Otherwise everything should be neat as usual, and the less appearance of show the better. It must seem as if we had lived with you for 10 years. ’

Left Roald Dahl with his mother, Sophie Magdalene.

Photograph © Roald Dahl Story Company reproduced by kind permission of The Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre.

Roald Dahl showed similar bossiness when asking his mother to buy him a cricket bat or a model boat, but for Sophie Magdalene, as for Frau Goethe, this was all water off the maternal back. Both had, after all, been dealing with their talented, but overbearing, offspring since birth. There is a special intimacy here. Goethe confides details of his physical and mental health and there is an easy affection between them that is absent from his dealings with other correspondents. In 1783, the 34-yearold writer even speculates that he and his mother may spend their old age together – after all, his mother was only 18 years older than he was.

Among the most enchanting letters to a mother on the Library shelves – and certainly one of the most borrowed collections, judging by the state of the book – are Joyce Grenfell’s letters to her mother, Nora, in Darling Ma: Letters to her Mother, 1932–44 (1988). That was how the young comedienne began each of them, in this chatty and revealing selection, written from Grenfell in England to her American

mother, who was the sister of Nancy Astor, in North Carolina. We are immediately plunged into a world of intimacy, of shared friends and in-jokes. But the letters also give us a fascinating sense of what it was like to live through a great conflict – in this case the Second World War – as an ordinary civilian. Grenfell entertained the troops during the war and, among all the tittle-tattle, there are eloquent passages that would probably never have seen the light of day in any other context, such as this one from a letter written in October 1940. It evokes a mood that would eventually see Clement Attlee’s reforming Labour administration of 1945 elected with an unexpectedly large majority.

‘D’you know I’ve come to the conclusion that we are fighting this war for more than mere democracy and so-called freedom … We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security, a wrong sense of comfort and we’ve got to break that. Of course we here in England are having it broken for us, for the old things we thought so safe, bricks and mortar, steel shelters, etc. just aren’t

Above Sylvia Plath with her two children and her mother, Aurelia, in Devon, c.1962. Photograph © CSU Archives/ Everett/ Alamy Stock Photo.

there when you turn around to lean on them. Instead we are getting glimpses of the things that really do last. And these are qualities of spirit – neighbourliness, brotherly love, kindness, compassion, spiritual strength, etc. etc. These qualities are on fire everywhere nowadays and the barriers of class and position are coming down through sheer necessity. If only we can cling onto these things – and I feel we shall – this war would have accomplished something really worthwhile. ’ Sylvia Plath’s tragic life was about as different from Joyce Grenfell’s as it is possible to imagine. Grenfell was a sunny soul, who found humour even in the worst of circumstances. Plath, by contrast, was tortured by anxiety and self-doubt and was frequently able to make a hell of heaven. In 1955, aged 22, she tried to commit suicide, taking an overdose of her mother’s sleeping pills and hiding in the basement of the family home in Massachusetts. She was not discovered for three days. The following year, after rejection from Harvard, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 19

John Berryman and his mother, Martha, c.1916.

at the University of Cambridge, from where she wrote her mother a series of letters that seem full of hope and optimism. It is as if she has put her depression behind her. ‘It is cold, biting, with blizzard flurries, and I bike home from classes and market, laden with apples, oranges, nuts, and daffodils … I am grateful for all the uncertainty, and all the horrors of suffering when I thought I was doomed to be mad for 90 years in a cell with spiders; I am solidly, realistically joyous … I write, however poorly, or superficially, for fun, for aesthetic order, and I am not poor or superficial, no matter what I turn out. ’ Plath’s father had died when she was eight years old and she became immensely close to her strong but doting mother, Aurelia. The voluminous correspondence between the two of them reflects Plath’s awareness that her mother’s love was boundless. In 1953, she described this to her younger brother, Warren, in typically grisly terms: ‘It is a frightening thing, that mother would actually kill herself for us if we calmly accepted all she wanted to do for us. She is an abnormally altruistic person, and I have realized lately that we have to fight against her selflessness as we would against a deadly disease. ’ So it was that Sylvia hid the darker side of her nature in her letters home and 20 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

delighted her mother with sunny portraits of her travels and adventures. ‘Oh, mumsy, I’m so happy here I could cry … The world is splitting open at my feet like a ripe, juicy watermelon! ’ she had written to Aurelia of her first term at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1950. But her journals from this time tell a different story: ‘God, who am I? I sit in the library tonight, the lights glaring overhead, the fan whirring loudly … There is my date this weekend: someone believes I am a human being, not a name merely. And these are the only indications that I am a whole person, not merely a knot of nerves, without identity. I’m lost. ’ Plath’s letters home show only one side of the psychological coin. It was the same with Roald Dahl, who also lost his father at the same age, and who loathed his boarding school as much as Plath was stressed by Smith. He too contemplated suicide, but gave no indication of this in his letters home, writing instead in an endlessly positive vein, telling her funny stories and making her believe school was a wonderful place. One senses however that, for both Dahl and Plath, writing such misleading letters to their mothers in a time of crisis was not just an act of subterfuge, but one of therapy. The letters home sustained them.

They provided a connection with a loving

world that had become a distant Eden.

This is not really the case with Plath’s fellow American and poet-suicide, John Berryman (1914–72). He also lost his father at a young age, declaring at the beginning of his autobiographical novel Recovery, published posthumously in 1973, that, while there was no male hero or villain ruling his life, there was instead, ‘an unspeakably powerful possessive adoring MOTHER, whose life at 75 is still centred wholly on me’ . Martha Berryman was indeed an overbearing figure, whose obsessive love for her son may have had much to do with his subsequent alcoholism and depression. His letters to her, published as We Dream of Honour (edited by Richard J. Kelly, 1988), focus on his own talent in a way that is sometimes unbearable to read.

Her devotion is extreme. At one point Berryman – the only writer in this selection who consciously anticipates publication of his letters – declares that because he is a perfectionist he would ‘detest having any of my personal letters printed’ . His mother, true to form, offers to type them up for him, so he can correct them. When Berryman writes to say that he has fallen in love, she breaks off the correspondence, warning him that this might well damage his creativity. This is a woman who is living her life through her son and, as the letters progress, the contorted nature of their relationship becomes ever more apparent.

Berryman becomes increasingly watchful about what he tells her. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the pressures she put on every aspect of his life may have lain behind his decision to jump off a bridge in Minneapolis in 1972.

By contrast, one of the most rewarding of all the Library’s collections of writers’ letters to mothers is Thinking of Home: William Faulkner’s Letters to his Mother and Father, 1918–1925 (edited by James G. Watson, 1992). This delightful book covers the time when the writer was in his early twenties, beginning in 1918 when Faulkner enlists as a reservist in the British army in Canada because, at 5 feet 5 inches tall, he was considered too short for the US military. Interestingly, Faulkner wrote to both his parents, Maud and Murry, back home in Oxford, Mississippi, and perhaps as a result, his letters are less needy and neurotic than Plath’s or Berryman’s. Many are filled with piercing observations and funny reflections, often on the nature

of home itself. Faulkner initially finds it ‘queer’ , for example, that the keenest soldiers around him are the ones who prize their own homes most highly. ‘It isn’t so queer though, ’ he continues, ‘for only he whose heart and soul is wrapped about his home … can know that home is the thing worth having above everything and it is well-known what is not worth fighting for is not worth having’ .

He has a wonderful eye for detail and shares his delight in the hardships of his training. ‘We are all mud to the knees today … If you could see me wading around in the water and mud, and sleeping any way, wet clothes or not, you’d have a fit, Mother. ’ To his regret, he never sees action, but when the war is over he travels to New England, where he revels in describing new landscapes and people. He observes with amusement, for example, how absurdly a ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ Englishman pronounces his vowels, while New York City – and particularly travelling on the subway there – is not to his taste at all: ‘The experience showed me that we are not descended from monkeys, as some say, but from lice. I never saw anything like it. Great

‘

When Berryman

LETTERS TO MOTHER

’

writes to say that he

has fallen in love, his

mother breaks off the correspondence

crowds of people cramming underground and pretty soon here comes a train, and I swear I believe the things are going a mile a minute when they stop. Well, everybody crowds on, the guards bawling and shoving, then off again, top speed. It’s like being shot through a long piece of garden hose. ’ ‘I couldn’t live here at all without your letters, ’ Faulkner confesses to his parents at one point – not out of despair, but out of a surfeit of pure affection. And affection, in many guises, is the common thread that binds all these collections together.

Facing new challenges in unfamiliar places, writing home provides each writer with

a link to a voice or voices that are almost as familiar to them as their own. In every case, apart from Berryman’s, one is also reminded of the strength maternal (and paternal) love can offer. Even after six years away, suffering no apparent homesickness, for example, Faulkner feels moved to tell his parents that he loves them ‘more than all the world’ . It is no surprise that he eventually returns and settles in his native Mississippi.

In all these collections, however, one thing is generally missing: the mother’s side of the correspondence. Did editors consider their letters unimportant?

Were they lost? Perhaps the offspring destroyed them, or just didn’t bother to keep them? One misses them, for while the absent voice can often be imagined, the personality of the mother remains tantalisingly enigmatic. The German poet Eduard Mörike captured the situation perfectly: ‘Not one of my songs proclaims your praise, O Mother, For to praise you indeed, I am too rich and too poor. You are a song, as yet unheard by any others but always close to my heart, offering me sweet consolation. ’

.

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THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 21

HIDDEN CORNERS

abyssinia

Josh Ireland discovers that the titles on Abyssinia in the Library’s collection reveal as much about the writers themselves as the often mythologised African kingdom

Abyssinia – the historical name for the kingdom ruled by the Solomonic dynasty from the thirteenth century until 1974 – no longer appears on any maps. Succeeded by the modern state of Ethiopia, which occupies similar territory, it should reside in the same archaic basket as Byzantium or Burgundy. But the idea of Abyssinia has persisted, and it continues to enjoy a quasimaterial existence in locations such as The London Library.

Perhaps this is because of the extraordinary position that for many centuries it occupied within the European imagination. Well into the twentieth century the word Abyssinia was a kind of shorthand for barbaric, oriental splendour, a misrepresentation that was exacerbated by vagueness. For it is a nation that has always 22 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

invited uncertainty, a territory conjured as often as it was mapped; its borders, even its topography, bending to accommodate the preconceptions and fixations of the people who have written about it.

Most of the historical and biographical volumes on Abyssinia within the Library’s collection can be found in the History shelves in the Back stacks; alongside these are a number of illustrated and large-format texts, which are located in Topography.

A good place to start is The Abyssinians

by David Buxton (1970), which opens by deftly observing that Abyssinia is in Africa, but not of it, and goes on to provide a brisk but authoritative account of the country’s early history. In addition, his descriptions of contemporary life are a time capsule, recording daily existence, architecture and

spiritual life in the country before revolution and famine changed it irrevocably, and the book has a plate section worth lingering over. Similar ground is covered in Edward Ullendorff’s The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People (1965), though the tone is more scholarly – unsurprisingly, given its author was for decades a leading authority on the subject.

Sylvia Pankhurst spent much of the second half of her life agitating on behalf of Haile Selassie’s Abyssinia (so much so that MI5 began to consider how they might begin ‘muzzling the tiresome Miss Sylvia Pankhurst’). She also found time to compile the vast Ethiopia: A Cultural History (1955). It contains much to digest, but the chief pleasure comes with gazing at its reproductions of a collection of

eighteenth-century religious manuscripts, which still exude an almost numinous glow.

It might be read in conjunction with Georg Gerster’s Kirchen im Fels: Entdeckungen in Athiopia (1968) and Lalibela, Wonder of Ethiopia: The Monolithic Churches and their Treasures (2012) by Jacques Mercier and Claude Lepage. Both these books, located in Topography, contain stunning photographs of the country’s rock churches, and of the Ethiopian church’s ornate material culture.

The European fascination with Abyssinia began in earnest in the twelfth century in response to the proliferation of rumours about the legendary Prester John, a Christian monarch, it was said, who ruled the regions beyond Armenia and Persia. In addition to his fabulous wealth, the existence of the mighty armies he was believed to command offered hope to a Christendom still struggling to react to the threat posed by Islam, a threat that increased in the years after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Elaine Sanceau’s Portugal in Quest of Prester John (1943) is an engaging account of the bold Portuguese attempts from the fifteenth century onwards to locate the realm of the mysterious king, and the fraught cultural exchanges that ensued. Sanceau conveys a vivid sense of brave men venturing into trackless seas, and how stories about their journeys were simultaneously an emblem of the contemporary unquenchable thirst to discover the world and a driver of this desire.

She is also alive to the ways in which the medieval European obsession with Prester John was in many ways an index of its cultural anxieties and obsessions (notably gold and rampaging Muslims).

In the nineteenth century, more often than not it was the British who were sending expeditions to the only African country that remained uncolonised. Record of the Expedition to Abyssinia: Compiled by Order of the Secretary of State for War (2 vols., 1870), written by Major Trevenen J. Holland and Captain Henry M. Hozier, collects administrative records alongside a narrative of their journey. There is something hypnotic about the endless lists of provisions (curry-combs, hoop-pickers, breast-straps, mule shoes), as well as the ceaseless attempts to record information about the land and people they encountered; one is left with an unsettling sense of the British Empire as a living, breathing entity. The

volume of maps that complements it is a thrilling marriage of form and function.

Gerald Portal wrote My Mission to Abyssinia in 1892, once he had returned safely from an attempt to mediate between King Johannes and the Italian government, who were locked in a dispute about the provisions of a treaty that Abyssinia and Italy had signed three years previously. Portal is an embodiment of the strange compound of xenophobia, curiosity, arrogance and vulnerability that typified the imperial spirit at a time when Britain was still enraptured by its empire. He is obstinate, often bigoted, but if he is sometimes offended by what he sees, he is never anything less than interested. We see him stride through the beauty of the ‘African Switzerland’ , shooting vast quantities of game and singing musichall songs. Though he dreams constantly of Lord’s Cricket Ground, he is always alive to the strange magic of the country in which he is travelling, and knows the value of recording the novelties he encounters.

He maintains an unblinking faith in the superiority of the English over all other nations, and yet even here it is possible to discern anxieties about how contact

with civilisation might rob Abyssinia’s ‘savage’ inhabitants of their vitality, their distinctiveness. It is a conversation that also allows him to articulate fears about what his own country might already have lost. Maybe this explains why he values ‘pluck’ so highly. Its presence in his companions provides welcome proof that Britain’s sinews are still stiff.

A large proportion of the books in the Library’s collection centre on Haile Selassie, a response to the way in which the charismatic emperor of this distant African nation became the focus of the world’s attention in the lead-up to Benito Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. Most of the authors write as if they are entering the lists: few people – even the punctilious Ullendorff – who came into contact with the Lion of Judah or his country seem to have emerged with their objectivity intact.

Leonard Mosley’s biography Haile Selassie: The Conquering Lion (1964) is generally sober and well informed, but it also contains pages that read like a medieval court romance. The young Selassie’s life is recounted as if it were a fable full of spoiled princes, jealous queens and plotting

Opposite Rock church of St George, Lalibela, Northern Ethiopia.

Photograph © Eitan Simanor/ Alamy Stock Photo.

Right Carved and painted ark, thirteenth century, in the sanctuary of Saviour of the World, Lalibela, from Lalibela, Wonder of Ethiopia: The Monolithic Churches and their Treasures by Jacques Mercier and Claude Lepage (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2012).

Photograph © Antonio Da Silva.

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 23

courtiers. And though the book offers a useful guide to the personalities and factions within the Abyssinian court, one also has a strong impression of a melancholy emperor whispering to the author about how he wished history might have played out. How else to explain sentences like this? ‘Tafari [Selassie] looked at him with those winsome dark brown eyes and asked him, sorrowfully, why he was so distrustful. ’ Princess Asfa Yilma (who, as a distant relation of the emperor, at least has the excuse of consanguinity) describes her subject as a ‘mild scholarly figure’ , and a man of peace who will fight to the last.

She presents him, in sum, as an African Charlemagne. Haile Selassie: Emperor of Ethiopia (1936) is unabashedly partisan. It is by turns vehement, purblind and humorous, and there’s a fair dose of the kind of

24 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

credulous ethnographic speculation (largely concerned with the fate of the Twelve Tribes of Israel) that has now largely been consigned to niche websites. It also makes a vigorous defence of the practice of slavery or, to be more precise, its continued existence within Abyssinia’s borders (it was grudgingly abolished in 1942). The passages are strikingly reminiscent, in form if not always substance, of the arguments presented

by Western commentators sympathetic to Putin’s Russia, or Assad’s Syria. But it is energetic, and good at the longue durée: she shows, for instance, that far from being an isolated anachronism Abyssinia had for centuries been an important trading hub, bridging east and west.

Mosley and Yilma both offer astringent takes on the behaviour of the Great Powers in the lead-up to Mussolini’s invasion

in 1935. They narrate a cynical litany of treaties regarding Ethiopia’s future in which its independence was treated as entirely provisional. Leonard Woolf’s The League and Abyssinia (1936) is also a useful contemporary reflection on the international community’s shabby failures. Where Woolf is cool and judicious, William J.W. Roome in Ethiopia the Valiant (1936) is far more excitable, though I suspect his combination of sympathy and condescension is probably more representative of the tenor of his contemporaries’ views on the situation.

His scepticism of Catholicism is essentially interchangeable with a more general scepticism of foreigners, and stands in stark contrast to the faith he retains in the essential goodness of Britain’s own imperial project. ‘Hitherto, ’ he argues, dubiously, ‘Great Britain has been regarded as the champion of African races’ .

Unlike many other British writers, Evelyn Waugh was resolutely immune to Abyssinia’s intoxications. In Waugh in Abyssinia (1936) he describes it as a ‘barbarous and zenophobic [sic]’ nation, ‘a land of appalling spectacles’ whose emperor was afflicted by a mind ‘pathetically compounded of primitive simplicity and primitive suspicion … and traditional savage hostility to European standards’ .

Where others celebrated an independent nation standing bravely against fascism, Waugh only saw an ‘imperialism devoid of a single redeeming element.

However sordid the motives and however gross the means by which the white races established … themselves in Africa, the result has been, in the main, beneficial, for there are more good men than bad in Europe and there is a predisposition towards justice and charity in European culture. ’ Waugh is of course always worth reading, but this is an often intemperate, uninterested book that leaves one wondering whether he saved his best African material for Scoop and Black Mischief. He finds everything tawdry, the people boastful, mendacious and venal.

Though occasionally his comic engine slides into gear and starts puffing away, most of the time he can only summon interest in his surroundings if his own comfort is threatened.

Waugh is not the only dissenting voice in the Library’s collection. The pamphlet Italian Civilization in Ethiopia (1936), authored by Mario Pigli and published

HIDDEN CORNERS by the Dante Alighieri Society, is a curio.

Though it claims merely to be ‘an accurate summary of well ascertained events’ , in truth it is a specious document. In his attempts to cast Abyssinia in the role of aggressor Pigli lies ineptly, which is a shame, because the photographs that accompany his falsehoods are beautiful.

Similarly dishonest is Marshal Pietro Badoglio’s account of his victorious 1936 campaign, The War in Abyssinia (1937), which comes complete with a foreword

by Mussolini, sycophantically reproduced in facsimile. It is nonetheless a fascinating insight into the mentality and culture of Il Duce’s Italy as it sought to ‘remedy the unsufferable wrongs committed by a barbarous state against our thousand-yearold civilisation’ . Reading this complacent account one is impressed by the Marshal’s command of modern warfare – so advanced is it that he seems cleverly to have dispensed with the gore and horror of battles gone by.

G.L. Steer’s Caesar in Abyssinia (1936) is a necessary corrective, confronting us with a less pristine version of the conflict, one that smells of ‘stale Chianti, rotten bodies, unswept offal’ . His account of the war is ironic and humorous in places, but always humane. Another salutary reminder of the viciousness that accompanied Mussolini’s invasion comes in the form of the memorandums collected in Documents on Italian War Crimes Submitted to the United Nations War Crimes Commission by the Imperial Ethiopian Government 1949–50, which is located in History, Abyssinia.

Here one finds bureaucracy and brutality juxtaposed to chilling effect.

The latter half of Selassie’s story is told well in King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (2015, translated by Peter Lewis),

by Asfa-Wossen Asserate, a great-nephew of the emperor. An insider’s account drawing on personal connections, by an author who was himself an eyewitness of the regime’s last gasps, it is astute at identifying its subject’s paradoxes: the pool shark and car fanatic who was also an ascetic Christian; the despot at home who to many millions of Africans came to symbolise their own struggles for independence.

After the war Selassie positioned himself at the head of Africa’s decolonisation movement, but domestically he struggled to reconcile demand for reform with his own conviction that he held the throne by divine

Opposite Frontispiece photograph by J. Heyman of Gerald H. Portal in Abyssinian costume, from Portal’s book My Mission to Abyssinia (1892).

Right Haile Selassie, Emperor of Abyssinia, 1930–74. Photograph, 1930, © Chronicle/ Alamy Stock Photo.

right. ‘Did King David abdicate?’ we hear him ask rhetorically at one point. What King of Kings also does is recognise the Abyssinian emperor’s predilection for myth-making. In this telling he is more Machiavelli than Charlemagne.

So effective was the emperor at persuading others to conduct his propaganda for him, that it seems that when in the 1970s he came to produce his own memoirs, The Autobiography of Emperor Haile Selassie I: My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress, 1892–1937 (translated by Edward Ullendorff, 1976), he felt little need to exert himself in that direction. It is a curious, disembodied book, constructed more like a medieval chronicle than a conventional narrative (sample chapter title: ‘About men who were an obstacle to the work of government by coming between Queen Zawditu and myself’), and marked by what Ullendorff, its translator, called a ‘lofty disdain for specifics’ .

If it is short on detail, it is worth flicking through for those moments when one can discern something which can best be described as the imperial tone. For instance: ‘Apart from the minor chores which We

carried out daily and apart from what We have forgotten because of the lapse of time, the following is some of the major work which We now remember. ’ Another book in which mood predominates over the mundane is the Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski’s The ´ Emperor, published in 1978 after Selassie had been deposed in a coup d’état four years earlier. Dizzying, almost hallucinatory, it assembles interviews with the Lion of Judah’s surviving courtiers into a bewildering collage that allows Kapuscinski both to recreate the ´ lavish corrupt atmosphere of the end of the ancien régime, and to meditate on absolute power and its decay (and thus to comment obliquely on his own country’s political predicament, though this was something he always denied).

Kapuscinski has of course frequently ´ been criticised for the ways in which he has embroidered facts to suit his own purposes, and certainly The Emperor exists in a hazy epistemological space. In this sense, it is perhaps representative of many of the books in this collection: in attempting to paint a portrait of Abyssinia, the writer has instead painted a portrait of himself.

.

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 25

THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY The first in a new series of articles on historic independent libraries takes us to the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati. Librarian Cedric Rose reveals the story behind the stacks on the banks of the Ohio.

Behind the ornate, stone façade of an early twentieth-century office building in downtown Cincinnati there lives a library with a long and storied past. The goddess Silence greets you at its door, finger poised at her marble lips. She’s one of many sculptures here. Portrait busts of literary figures and luminaries – including Charles Dickens, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe – line a reading room accented with nineteenthcentury and Arts and Crafts furnishings. But Cincinnati’s Mercantile Library is anything but silent, or archaic. It’s both a retreat for contemplative reading and a space where writers, students, professionals, techies and enthusiastic readers meet and work.

In the decades before the Civil War, Mercantile Libraries were commonplace in cities across the country, and were exclusively the milieu of merchants, hence the name. Later, they grew to admit members of other professions. Founded in 1835, Cincinnati’s Mercantile Library moved to the second floor of the Cincinnati College building on the present site in 1840, which burned down five years later. In exchange for $10,000 collected by its members for rebuilding, and with counsel from lawyer Alphonso Taft, father of one of the nation’s portlier presidents, a 10,000-year lease was negotiated. That’s one dollar a year – renewable. With the rise of public libraries, most Mercantile Libraries disappeared or were subsumed into larger institutions, but the lease of Cincinnati’s Mercantile Library has allowed it to survive, its identity intact.

The design of its present building, erected in 1903, included custom accommodation for the library on the eleventh and twelfth floors, in accordance with that lease. Iron stacks with glass floors hold most of its 90,000-volume collection. High, arched windows fill its two-storey reading room with light.

For the 45 young businessmen who founded this library in what was then a frontier city on the banks of the Ohio River – 26 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

The reading room at the Mercantile Library. Photograph © Phil Armstrong.

the major commercial artery of the nation’s westward expansion – the institution fulfilled a basic need for news and information.

Works of practical knowledge were collected, fantasies eschewed. As its members accrued wealth, the library’s focus shifted to collecting literature – even fiction was finally deemed appropriate – and to hosting authors and lecturers. These included Edward Everett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville and Stowe.

With the influx of German immigrants, Cincinnati grew into a brewing centre, a meat-packing powerhouse and a hotbed of machinist and industrial enterprise. Later, as home to the multinational corporation Procter & Gamble, the city developed into the branding hub it remains today. As both a business and a literary centre, the Mercantile Library influenced the region’s course.

Adjacent to the library proper it founded the Merchant’s Exchange, which collected, compiled and supplied the city’s papers with

business information: statistics, steamboat timetables and stock prices. And it was home to the fledgling Chamber of Commerce, which brought the telegraph to Cincinnati.

The value of networking in a technological, as well as a professional and social sense, was by no means lost on those young men.

A progressive thread is woven throughout the Mercantile Library’s history.

In 1859 it began accepting women. In 1872, the first African American joined. Today it is more diverse than ever, and seeks out books, authors and lecturers that challenge minds and promote discourse. In the past few decades, Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie, Samantha Power and Zadie Smith have spoken here. This year Margaret Atwood takes its stage. Such programming continues to attract new members: its roll now exceeds numbers not seen in a hundred years. And those new members ensure that this thriving twenty-first-century library remains vital to the city’s literary life.

MEMBERS’ News IN MEMORY OF DRUE HEINZ (1915–2018) In March the Library lost one of its most important and singular patrons when Mrs Drue Heinz DBE passed away, having just marked her 103rd birthday.

It seems that Mrs Heinz first supported the Library in 1991 with two gifts, one to celebrate its 150th anniversary and the other to support its ‘building and computerisation’ fund. This model of both helping to sustain the core operation of the Library and supporting its future ran through all her giving. She was a most generous patron to the Library’s Capital Appeal in the 2000s and, most recently, the Tom Stoppard Innovation Fund. However, to most members, perhaps her most important impact was in the creation of the Drue Heinz Literary Fund.

This was launched in the 1990s with a donation of £1m and, as of the end of the last financial year, the fund stood at just over £2.9m.

Mrs Heinz, who was born in this country, was always very private about her life, but undoubtedly central to that life was her marriage in 1953 to H.J. Heinz II, the then President of the Heinz company.

Her love of literature was sustained, informed and passionate for many years and took many forms. As a publisher she founded the Ecco Press in 1971 with the encouragement of the American poet and publisher James Laughlin. She went on to publish Antaeus magazine until it closed in 1994, and was the publisher of the Paris Review from 1993 until 2008. She was also a longstanding Vice-President of the Library.

However, it was in her wide-ranging philanthropic support of literature that she must surely rank as one of literature’s most remarkable patrons. From endowing the Drue Heinz Literary Prize at the University of Pittsburgh in 1981 to reinvigorating one of Britain’s oldest literary prizes, the Hawthornden, and restoring Hawthornden Castle near Edinburgh to create one of the UK’s best retreats for writers, she understood how to help and support writers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Her philanthropy started with her husband at her side and, as Lord Gowrie has said, ‘Drue Heinz always described herself, and thought of herself, as a Foundation Administrator. She loved and mourned her husband Jack and dedicated her long widowhood to the disposal of her share of Heinz family wealth in ways Jack and she inaugurated during their long and happy marriage.’

Her philanthropic support was not only exceptionally generous but, rare among cultural philanthropists, also very self-effacing. It was her wish that her name would not adorn

Drue Heinz.

any part of the Library’s building, although her generosity undoubtedly merited it. However, her name can be found across the Library in many thousands of books that were purchased through the Drue Heinz Literary Fund. She took great delight when friends would phone her up about a book they were reading and then inform her that the book was on the shelves of The London Library because of her.

The last words should go to Sir Tom Stoppard: ‘I know few people who love literature and the world of books as much as Drue Heinz loved them to the very end of her life. The Library has always been proud to count her a close friend.’

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 27

IN MEMORY OF ALAN SCOTT BELL (1942–2018) It was with great sadness that the Library learned of the death on 24 April of Alan Bell, who was the Librarian here from 1993 to 2002.

Alan became Librarian following a distinguished career in collection development that began on graduation from Selwyn College, Cambridge, with his appointment as Assistant Registrar to the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, and included 15 years as Assistant Keeper at the National Library of Scotland (1966–81) and 12 years as Librarian at the University of Oxford Rhodes House Library (1981–93).

Alan had joined The London Library as a member in 1983 and was appointed Librarian in 1993 on the retirement of Douglas Matthews. He played a key role in the continued development and expansion of the Library’s collections, and his tenure coincided with a period of considerable change as the Library tackled a series of significant building projects and embraced computerised cataloguing and Internet use.

The Anstruther Wing (enabled by a major donation from Ian Anstruther) had just been opened and the Drue Heinz Literary Fund had recently been established. Alan helped ensure that the Library was able to make the most of these generous gifts.

Over 40,000 rare and vulnerable volumes were transferred into the safe storage of the Anstruther Wing, while the Drue Heinz Literary Fund has already enabled the Library to acquire thousands of books.

Alongside his highly successful library career, Alan actively pursued wider literary and antiquarian interests. He was a regular reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement and various other journals, and his published works included a biography of Sydney Smith (1980), Lord Cockburn: Selected Letters (2005), which he edited, and contributions to Histories of Oxford University and the Oxford University Press. He was appointed a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, in 1980, and from 1993 worked as an advisory editor on the Oxford Dictionary

We’re 10 years old The London Library Magazine is celebrating its tenth anniversary with this issue. It was first published in summer 2007, and 40 issues have now appeared, featuring articles from over 250 London Library members. We’re enormously grateful to the contributors for their support, and are always proud to showcase the amazing variety of books and ideas that our members are involved with. Our website is featuring a selection of articles that have appeared over the last ten years – to find out more, click on londonlibrary.co.uk/magazine-anniversary.

28 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

Alan Bell, Librarian 1993–2002. Photograph, The London Library.

of National Biography. Following his retirement he continued his literary projects, including providing editorial assistance with the Oxford University Press edition of The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh.

For much of his time at The London Library, Alan was assisted in his work by the then Deputy Librarian, Inez Lynn, who succeeded him on his retirement in January 2002. Inez commented: ‘Alan brought a deep knowledge of books, writers and scholarship to the role of Librarian and embraced new technology with enthusiasm. Always generous with his assistance to writers and scholars, he was also exceptionally generous in allowing his senior staff to develop their own ideas for the Library and to bring them to fruition, taking real pleasure in their professional development.’

MEMBERS’ NEWS

New Events 2018 We are proud to announce the latest in our exciting events programme for 2018: Diane Atkinson, The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes* Thursday, 5 July 2018 Marking the centenary of female suffrage, Diane Atkinson discusses her definitive history charting women’s fight for the vote through the lives of those who took part.

John Julius Norwich on Rudyard Kipling Thursday, 13 September 2018 Historian John Julius Norwich reflects on the life and work of Rudyard Kipling, the hugely influential Nobel

Prize-winning writer who – like John Julius himself – was also a Vice-President of The London Library.

Michael Billington, The End of Theatre Censorship?

Thursday, 27 September 2018 Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Theatres Act 1968, theatre critic Michael Billington will chair a panel of experts looking at the history of theatre censorship dating back to the Licensing Act of 1737, and debating different types of censorship that exist in theatre today.

Mohammed Hanif, Red Birds* Thursday, 11 October 2018 Dubbed ‘Pakistan’s brightest voice’, bestselling author Mohammed Hanif discusses Red Birds, his powerful novel about war, family and love.

Agnès Poirier, Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940–1950* Thursday, 8 November 2018 Agnès Poirier paints a captivating portrait of those who lived, loved, fought, played and flourished in Paris between 1940 and 1950, and whose intellectual and artistic output still influences us today.

Right Joshua Levine’s talk on Dunkirk in the Reading Room, April 2018.

These events are open to Members and non-members, and all will take place in The London Library Reading Room (doors opening at 6.30pm). To find out more and to book tickets, visit: londonlibrary.co.uk/aboutus/whats-on. * in partnership with Bloomsbury Institute.

Alan Bell [any more info here?]

HELPING THE WRITERS OF TOMORROW A couple of years ago the Library took a call from a gentleman in Paris with an idea. Julio Nuñez, along with his wife, Maria, had been members of the Library since 1972. Now, aged ninety, he wanted to help the Library in two ways.

Mr Nuñez was a great reader and had a keen and richly informed understanding of world affairs. As with all great bibliophiles, his book collection reflected the breadth and depth of his interests and he wanted those books to have a good home. Gill Turner, Head of Acquisitions, went to see the books and was particularly taken with those on the Cold War. It was agreed that the titles that could valuably augment the Library’s collection would go on the shelves. These books will start entering the collection shortly. It was also agreed that those volumes that were duplicates or did not quite fit into the Library’s collection policy would be dispersed and the proceeds added to Julio Nuñez’s second idea – helping emerging writers.

As a very successful financier, Mr Nuñez understood the Library’s finances but remained concerned that the fee precluded many emerging writers from being able to use its rich resources. So he proposed creating an endowment for the Library, the proceeds from which would go towards offering significantly reduced membership for writers. Last year the Library quietly launched the programme as a pilot, with partners such as the writer development agency Spread the Word, and eight recipients were chosen. The scheme proved successful and we are beginning to explore this year’s cohort. Fortunately, this year the cohort will be larger as some other donors have generously come on board.

Ensuring that the Library remains a place where the writers of tomorrow can grow and develop their skills is obviously hugely important to its future. After a long and happy life, Mr Nuñez sadly died last year, just as the pilot programme was becoming established. Although he will

Julio Nuñez book plate.

not be able to see and read the work of the writers now able to use the Library through the funding of the Julio and Maria Marta Nuñez Memorial Fund, we hope that his family will take pride in the fact that he played a crucial step in enabling the Library to strengthen its role in supporting the future of English literature.

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 29

SUPPORT THE ST JAMES’S BUILDING WINDOWS APPEAL Library members may be aware of some urgent building work scheduled to happen in July – the replacement of 13 windows on the west side of the St James’s Building. This work is an unusual one-off expense. The St James’s Building Windows Appeal has been created to seek donations to help meet the total project cost of £75,000, minimising the impact on the Library’s regular maintenance programmes and day-to-day operating budgets. To find out more, or make a donation, please visit londonlibrary.co.uk/windows or contact the Development Office on 020 7766 4795. All donations are welcome and, with 13 windows being replaced, there are opportunities for individuals, families or charitable trusts to have a window named in recognition of their donation.

The much-loved St James’s Building windows are in urgent need of replacement.

POETRY Cosmo Davenport-Hines, who was the youngest life member of The London Library, died on 9 June 2008, aged 21. The Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize was set up at King’s College London in his memory. This year’s winner is Teresa Cherukara.

First Love, First Rites I try to treat the past like a dead grandfather: that is, with appropriate reverence.

Yet every now and then I am reminded of a body buried deep beneath damp Indian soil, of earthworms, wood-rot, and a gravestone I could not read alone, even if I wanted to.

In the end, all relationships become exercises in embalming.

I like to judge men by the length of their fingers. Every time I try being pliable, I find a new edge: I am always ready for a fight. I have tried soaking in Epsom salt, lime juice, fabric softener.

Memories that sound like muffled tears double as indelible lessons in starching.

Legacy requires pride in cyclicality, even of error. So love cautiously, grieve recklessly.

Grieve like a man on the street hollering about repentance.

Like a hysterical four-year old, bleary-eyed and unintimidated by snow.

Like an insidious suit with an agenda, no care for collateral damage.

I think of you and try recalling veal cooked too rare, pink pools of blood afloat pale cream sauce too heavy for either one of us. Dreams reject heresy: there remains the sunset soaked city, promises as holy and collapsible as communion wafers, pious devotion to being vouched for.

I stay patient, replay familiar arms raised in surrender mid-plummet.

This is part elegy, part apology never required or requested, so in some sense I am sorry to be sorry.

I was tired of waiting, and your shadow cast the perfect shape. Transfixed by our silhouettes, placed together in the corner of that dark bar with the neon lights, your candescent halo.

Thrilled when they joked we were too in love, to stop now, enough now.

Stop, I never could do things in halves. Hand me a matchstick, I will show you a forest fire.

Enough, stand on cool ash, speak of the phoenix and restorative time while fumbling with cigarettes.

I am not fooled. No appropriate reverence to a god wrought in gold.

Teresa Cherukara 30 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

Teresa Cherukara is pursuing her MA in Comparative Literature at King’s College London. Her research interests cover South Asian and diasporic literatures.

She is currently Marketing Manager of TEDxGoodenough College, based in Bloomsbury, and has previously had fiction published by the Oxford University Press.

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