WRITER & HISTORIAN
Sometime in 1506, the Benedictine abbot Johannes Trithemius, stopped at a tavern in the German town of Gelnhausen. There he encountered Doctor Faustus - then going by the name of Georg Sabellicus - handing out what were in essence business cards. Faustus was, the cards said, “the chief of necromancers, an astrologer, the second magus,... Continue Reading →
The late 16th century was a precarious time to be involved in – or just to meet anyone involved in – the theatre. There was cash flow, of course. And the threat of closure, on either political or health-and-safety grounds. But there were other risks too. One of them was death. For a small group... Continue Reading →
The British Empire, the East African Chronicle wrote in 1921, was a “wonderful conglomeration of races and creeds and nations”. It offered “the only solution to great problem of mankind – the problem of brotherhood. If the British Empire fails then all else fails.” Stirring words. Not those of some sentimental old Colonel Blimp back... Continue Reading →
In late November 1935, Virginia Woolf went to see a production of Romeo and Juliet. She was not overly impressed. “Acting it,” she wrote, “they spoil the poetry”. Harsh words, you might think, for a cast that included John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and Peggy Ashcroft. But Shakespeare on the stage was always something of a... Continue Reading →
Was there anything, aside from consanguinity, that united the Tudor dynasty as it lurched back and forth from Catholicism to Protestantism across the middle decades of the 16th century? One answer to that question, surprisingly, was a man named William Somer, Henry VIII’s last and best-loved fool. It is not simply that surviving court accounts... Continue Reading →
I did a quick Q&A with US poetry website Fevers of the Mind. It's up online here.
I hope this finds everyone happy and well. I know, I know: another year, another newsletter… I don’t know if this is becoming a ritual now, but it’s nice to look back and remember what the year has brought me. I’ve been very grateful for the opportunity to write about a wider range of things... Continue Reading →
The Roma are an Indian people. They left what is now north-west India and Pakistan in the early decades of the 11th century for reasons which will likely never be known, but which may relate to incursions by Muslim armies in the region. They moved west around the Caspian and into the Byzantine Empire by... Continue Reading →
“All I desire is fame,” wrote Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, in the preface to her first book, a collection of poetry, in 1653. “Fame is nothing but a great noise… therefore I wish my book may set a-work every tongue.” As a statement of the workings of celebrity it is remarkably modern. But it... Continue Reading →
Many thanks to Engelsberg Ideas for asking me to pick my favourite books of the year. Lots to choose from, but I went for two in the end. Link here.
“‘Deep breath,’ says the doctor. I take one and hold it.” Thus begins the fourth chapter in Ann Wroe’s new book, Lifescapes. It is apt, because this is a book about the breath of life itself. It is good advice for the reader too: Wroe’s writing is intense and visionary, bordering on the ecstatic. But... Continue Reading →
I didn’t recognise the book on my shelf. I barely noticed it, scanning the titles quickly for a different one I had mislaid. But somehow the thin tattered spine of its dusty, crumbling dust jacket caught my eye as it rested in the dark, shadowed end of the book case. It was one of my... Continue Reading →
There are few, if any, more transient and precarious forms of publishing than small-press poetry magazines. But it still came as a shock when Ambit closed its doors in February this year. Founded in 1959, Ambit’s storied past had featured everyone from William Burroughs to Stevie Smith, from Linton Kwesi-Johnson to Carol Ann Duffy. But... Continue Reading →
In the 1870s, the Manchester Corporation Waterworks made plans to buy two small Cumbrian lakes, Wythburn Water and Leathes Water, and the surrounding land, to build a reservoir. The city desperately needed access to clean water for its burgeoning industrial population. But it met with virulent opposition: Octavia Hill, later co-founder of the National Trust,... Continue Reading →
Locals called the area ‘La Cività’; a clue, perhaps. Antiquarian Lucas Holstenius proposed it as the site of Pompeii as early as 1637. But formal excavations didn’t begin until 1748. The site wasn’t regarded as interesting or valuable in itself, but merely a sources of decorative antiquities for Charles VII, king of Naples. This wasn’t... Continue Reading →
In 1700 a mathematician submitted a paper to the Royal Society in which he attempted to calculate, among other things, the rate at which oral testimony – that is, memory – decayed over long periods of time. It’s a quixotic idea, to be sure. But that such a thing might even be attempted speaks not... Continue Reading →
In April 1550, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, halted Spanish conquests in the Americas. He needed to know if such conquests were lawful. He had scruples; could they be overcome? A panel of over a dozen theologians, officials and administrators gathered in the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid to hear... Continue Reading →
“This, I must confess, seems owing to nothing but to the Fate of Things,” Daniel Defoe wrote glumly in 1724 of the decline of Dunwich. The town in Suffolk had once been the largest port on the East Anglian coast; in the 11th century its estimated population of 3,000 put it in the top fifth of... Continue Reading →
To have one patron imprisoned in the Tower may be regarded as a misfortune; to have two looks like carelessness. Perhaps Thomas Harriot, Renaissance polymath and client of both Sir Walter Ralegh and the ninth Earl of Northumberland, had good reason to direct his attention from worldly troubles. At 9pm on Wednesday 26 July 1609,... Continue Reading →
In the beginning, they did not even know how many of the dead were missing. When architect Reginald Blomfield began work on the Menin Gate, a memorial to British soldiers who died at Ypres between 1914 and 1918 and whose bodies had never been found, he was told to make space for 40,000 names. The... Continue Reading →
Mathew Lyons 