‘Emmonsail’s Heath in Winter’ is one of John Clare’s most admired poems, its subject being – as the title makes clear – a heath during the wintry season when its ‘withered brake / Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling’. Before we offer an analysis of this curious and […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys a beautifully produced new edition of Arthur Machen’s study of literature The Welsh author Arthur Machen (1863-1947) wrote some truly unsettling horror fiction, some notable novels about the Holy Grail, some subtle pioneering weird fiction (which I’ve previously […]
Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle English literature has a rich tradition of comic writing. From Chaucer’s ‘Miller’s Tale’ to Shakespeare’s Falstaff to the early comic novels of Smollett, Sterne, Fielding, and Swift, there are plenty of laughs to be had from the pages of the literary greats. But what will […]