Richard Francis

"In Crane Pond, Richard Francis reveals a side of the history that is not often recounted, as he ... constructs a portrait of Samuel Sewall, the only judge to later admit that a terrible mistake had been made [in the Salem witch trials]"--

A Novel of Salem

Crane Pond

This is the first definitive account of Fruitlands, one of history’s most unsuccessful—but most significant—utopian experiments. It was established in Massachusetts in 1843 by Bronson Alcott (whose ten-year-old daughter Louisa May, future author of Little Women, was among the members) and an Englishman called Charles Lane, under the watchful gaze of Emerson, Thoreau, and other New England intellectuals. Alcott and Lane developed their own version of the doctrine known as Transcendentalism, hoping to transform society and redeem the environment through a strict regime of veganism and celibacy. But physical suffering and emotional conflict—particularly between Lane and Alcott’s wife, Abigail—made the community unsustainable. Drawing on the letters and diaries of those involved, Richard Francis explores the relationship between the complex philosophical beliefs held by Alcott, Lane, and their fellow idealists and their day-to-day lives. The result is a vivid and often very funny narrative of their travails, demonstrating the dilemmas and conflicts inherent to any utopian experiment and shedding light on a fascinating period of American history.

The Alcott Family and Their Search for Utopia

Fruitlands

Colm Toibin

Martin Harrison

Richard Calvocoressi

Encompassing more than twenty-five paintings that Francis Bacon made in London and Paris during the last two decades of his life, this book serves as a companion to the 2015 exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, New York, and is the first in-depth exploration of the innovations of the artist’s late work. In his late paintings, Francis Bacon refined themes that had long obsessed him. He quoted reflexively from his oeuvre, reworking subjects to strip them to the bare essentials. This stunning new book features over 150 color illustrations of the artist’s work and related materials, including reproductions of ephemera from Bacon’s Hugh Lane studio."

Late Paintings

Francis Bacon

Taking Apart the Poco Poco

The patrons of a local pub reminisce about their present problems, past mistakes, and fears of the future, from Frank who worries about his failed marriage, to Dawn who loves a man fatally injured in a car crash, to Father Thomas who has lost his faith.

The Old Spring

The Land where Lost Things Go by Olive Watson

Swansong

Laura Laura

Holds up a magnifying glass to an apparently ordinary family who struggle to cope with post-war privations in Stockport, England. Humour and compassion, betrayal and deception.

Fat Hen

Offers a portrait of Ann Lee, from her humble English origins to becoming a visionary religious leader who founded the Shakers.

The Story of Ann Lee, Female Messiah, Mother of the Shakers, the Woman Clothed with the Sun

Ann, the Word

Television - the Evil Eye? A Speech Given by Richard Francis

This first serious biography of the leader of the Shaking Quakers, a religious cult known for erratic fits of divine shaking, passionate song and dance and speaking in tongues, follows her ambitious mission of conversation after she received the revelation that she was Ann the Word, the female embodiment of Christ. 15,000 first printing.

Ann the Word

'[Francis] is just so good at the transcription and transformation of everyday ordinary life, all seen from sideways on, so that everything becomes so strange and so funny.' - Tessa Hadley

First of an entire series of books and videos dedicated to the detailed instruction of Danzan Ryu Jujitsu is available. See the lists of techniques done in walk through and at full speed in the videos. Have the book handy to make sure you catch every detail. Look through the instructors notes for the finer points to hone your technique to perfection.With these tools and the special training tips provided, you can excel in Danzan Ryu Jujitsu. Be the star of the next tournament.The videos are available in DVD format from:Prof.Richard Francisaijukikan@yahoo.comVolume 1:Rolls and Falls, Yawaraand Nage $29.95Volume 2: Shime, Oku andKnife and Gun Arts $29.95The unedited video containsboth volume one and two $49.95Instructors handwritten noteswith annotations $19.95

Danzan Ryu Jujitsu Volume1 with Kowami and Ukemi

Francis suggests that at the heart of Transcendentalism was a belief that all phenomena are connected in a repetitive sequence. The task was to explain how human society could be reordered to benefit from this seriality. Some members of the movement believed in evolutionary progress, whereas others hoped to be the agents of a sudden millennial transformation. They differed, as well, in their views on whether the fundamental social unit was the individual, the family, the phalanstery, or the community. The story of the three communities was, inevitably, also the story of particular individuals, and Francis highlights the lives and ideas of such leaders as George Ripley, W. H. Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles Lane, and Theodore Parker.

Individual and Community at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden

Transcendental Utopias

Ann Lee is perhaps one of the most remarkable and mystifying women in the history of Western culture. Few could have imagined that humble beginnings in Manchester, England, would lead to the illiterate daughter of a blacksmith overcoming personal anguish and increasingly Puritanical sentiments in England and rising to become a visionary religious leader, thought by her followers to have been the second incarnation of Christ. After the deaths of her four children, Ann was committed to an insane asylum. While committed she received the revelation that she was Ann the Word, the female embodiment of Christ. Upon her release, she assumed leadership of the Shaking Quakers, or Shakers, a local religious cult known for erratic fits of divine shaking, passionate song and dance, speaking in tongues, and a belief that the millennium heralding the end of the world had come. Escaping persecution, she emigrated with a small band of Shakers to America in 1774. Charges of witchcraft and spying followed Lee wherever she went as she began an ambitious mission of conversion, establishing communities across New England. In the first serious biography about this spirited, captivating leader, Richard Francis provides “the best portrait to date of . . . [a] heroic, indomitable, mesmerizing woman” (Sunday Telegraph), a trail-blazer whose feminizing influence upon Christianity was marked progress for women of her time and long after. He also demonstrates the aura and strangeness of the radical Shakers during their militant years and in so doing, poignantly recreates a “remote prophetic world” (Evening Standard), bursting with mystery and intrigue.

An elderly academic on his way home from the cinema is accosted by a homeless woman. She tells him her name is Laura. So begins a nightmarish journey for Gerald, a historian forced to confront the mystery of his own past, and to ask himself if he has lived a good life—or even a decent one. In the course of this very funny, sometimes disturbing and often moving novel, suppressed memories return to haunt him. There is the matter of the bag of farthings, stolen when he was just a small boy. And the question of the role he played in a family tragedy. Above all he has to assess the harm he may have done in a long-forgotten love affair. Even those close to him suddenly appear unfathomable. How well does he really know his friend Terence, an apparently unworldly physics professor who inspired Gerald’s course on quantum history, or the vivacious, recently widowed Judith, his sister-in-law? And what about Abby, to whom he has been married the whole of his adult life? He seems to understand her as little as he understands himself. The problem with exploring the past, Gerald begins to see, is that there are an infinite number of ways to travel through it.

Richard Francis

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