John Howlett

This book title derives from Henleys most famous poem Invictus, which has been used as the name of a Hollywood film and for the International Paralympic Games sport event created by Britains Prince Harry. The poems stanzas have been popularised by Winston Churchill, Aung San Suu Ky and President Obama, and used to literary effect by C S Lewis, Oscar Wilde and in Casablanca. But this fine short lyric has unfortunately overshadowed Henleys other considerable literary output. Henley was the archetypal Man of Letters -- a poet, reviewer, essayist, journalist, historian and newspaper hack. His friendships with Robert Louis Stevenson, J M Barrie, and Yeats places him at the centre of the Victorian literary milieu. As editor of the National Observer he published writers as diverse as Kipling, Shaw, Hardy and Wells. He promoted new forms of expression in literature and art, and was a close friend of Rodin and Degas. The book reproduces key essays which relate to Henleys thinking on poetry, poets and the writing process, as well as his early and late poetry (some only recently discovered and attributed), unpublished verses, ephemera appearing in manuscript archives and important unpublished (often anonymous) essays. A scholarly introduction and critical notes serve to explain the significance of his poetry, the provenance of the material, and provide a context for his literary work in relation to historical events. Henley is often referenced in literary criticism, but until now has not been subject to book-length critical review. John Howlett set outs the case for his significance as a poet and writer in the context of Henleys central role in the publishing direction of Victorian literature.

Selected Poems and Prose of W. E. Henley

Invictus

A Biography

James Dean

Amy Palmer

This book presents a selection of case studies of pioneers in arts education who were working in the United Kingdom in the period 1890 to 1950. Focusing on music, drama, and visual arts and crafts, the editors and contributors examine the impact these individuals had on developing innovative approaches to these subject areas and how they drew on perspectives that emphasised the need for children’s self-expression. The chapters offer an analysis of the pioneers’ beliefs and values, with a particular emphasis on their ideological positions about identity, nation, and what constituted ‘good taste’. The book further examines how their ideas were disseminated, in so doing interrogating the concept of ‘influence’ in educational theory and practice.

British Pioneers in Arts Education from 1890 to 1950

Unfolding Creativity

Harry Cardwell, 21 year-old shepherd from the border hills, is already one of the 'veterans' of the Somme battlefield. Returning from leave Harry confronts a burly Sergeant auctioning off a tin of very intimate love-letters and photographs found in a shelled dug-out. Trying to protect the privacy of those letters, Harry buys them himself. A simple act of decency that is to have a lifetime of consequence. Annie is the nurse in the photographs. A former volunteer from New England with her doctor husband on a Harvard Medical Unit, she has ended up a widow on an ambulance train serving the Western Front. We are two strangers who meet in hell, she writes to Harry when he finally tracks her down. We come from two different worlds and have no mutual friends. Why should we hide anything from one another? Love Of An Unknown Soldier is the first volume in the Harry and Annie Series. A Long Road Home, When War Came Again, First Snow of Winter and Last Snow of Winter are available as paperback or ebook.

Love of an Unknown Soldier

Occupation Democrat, Destination Hell

It is 1945. Victorious London and her country are exhausted; conflict and confusion dominate the ruins of Köln and Berlin, of Italy and fascist Spain; while a ruthless banditry will soon control the secret world in Washington’s Foggy Bottom – its tentacles to reach even the Vatican. Family and friends search for Harry Cardwell, alive or dead. Harry’s son, Frank pursues justice or revenge for Nuremburg and the Judge Advocate General – but eventually, exhausted, chooses Opera Lirica where the red flag flies in Emilia. Frank, Helen and William with their children and children’s children will gather and return for Harry and the new Millennium – to the snows of Puschlav and Alp Grüm. The Cold War has divided the World, divides Europe, divides countries, above all divides the Cardwells. This far-reaching novel questions the accepted origins and the conduct of that division, and witnesses in particular the ruthless stranglehold of American power and paranoia on the politics and life of Italy and of Chile.

Alp Grüm

“Your wife’s been captured – and, I’m afraid, tortured.” The senior officer across the desk looked up: “She was heard to scream. We don’t know for how long.” The officer stood up: “I’m very sorry,” he said and shook Harry’s hand... Harry Cardwell’s wife Annie is in the hands of the OVRA, Italian secret police; his youngest son waits alone and vulnerable in Basel, his oldest son is trying to track down Harold Macmillan somewhere in North Africa: one family, like so many in war, scattered across the world and variously in peril... Between them they live the invasion of Sicily and Italy: with the 8th and 5th Armies and the foot-soldiers’ slog; with the PoWs and the partisan war; with the desperate heroism everywhere, military and civilian; with the tragic consequences of mistake or betrayal. And all of them all the time inside that endless roulette-wheel of injury, death or survival, most especially at the very end when victory and peace seem within grasp. Book 5 of 6 in the Harry and Annie series.

Last Snow of Winter

He seemed thinner than Harry remembered, still boyish though he must now be nearly forty: formerly Lieutenant 'Bunny' Andrews, leaning on a walking-stick with his smile and genuine delight at shaking the hand of his one-time Lance-Corporal, Harry Cardwell. Their War To End All Wars had happened long ago. Twenty years later they still lived with its echoes, shadow, loss and nightmare in their minds and bodies. So why and how could they now be meeting as volunteers in another war? 'We are grown men, ' said Bunny. 'We should be cultivating our gardens.' When War Came Again is the third volume of six in the Harry and Annie Series which started with Love Of an Unknown Soldier.

When War Came Again

This book represents the first scholarly collection of the work of an overlooked and neglected British poet. Featuring a comprehensive introduction and notes from Holmes’s official biographer, this collection breaks new ground in offering for the first time a fresh new body of work in the canon of nineteenth- and twentieth-century poetry.

Selected Poetry and Prose of Edmond Holmes

Although considered a figure of great importance and influence by his contemporaries, Edmond Holmes has been consigned to relative obscurity in the progressive educational tradition. This book reinstates Holmes as a key figure in the history of progressive education, both as a school inspector and educational thinker, who was instrumental in forming a set of ideas and principles which continue to resonate in education today. Combining biographical detail and key critical analysis, Edmond Holmes and Progressive Education brings together the key ideas and aspects of Holmes’ life and establishes his writings as amongst the most insightful ever produced by an educationalist. Throughout his inspectorial career, Holmes scorned mechanical obedience in the classroom and was appalled by the inability of teachers to allow pupils to express themselves freely and imaginatively. His seminal publications positioned him at the vanguard of educational reforms. His work, however, was not exclusively educational, and throughout his life Holmes published on religion, philosophy, poetry and literature, subsuming his educational viewpoint into a much wider ‘philosophy of life’. His spiritual leanings and call for an improved education system, which would draw out the potential for development from within the child, inspired successive generations of progressive educators. In studying Edmond Holmes in detail, this book makes an important contribution to current debates surrounding creativity and the curriculum, in particular, the need for alternative educational voices within the state system of regulation. This book will be key reading for postgraduate students and researchers who are interested in progressive education, the history of education and educational policy and politics.

John Howlett

About

Books

Join the club