Havelok the Dane

Continuing on my reading foray into medieval things, I took up another book by Kevin Crossley-Holland.  This is Havelock the Dane (1964), which was Crossley-Holland's first book, and is a retelling of a legend originating around Lincolnshire (and the town of Grimsby), written down as a poem in the late thirteenth century. It's an almost-typical medieval story. Two kings, one in England and the other in Denmark, are dying, and appoint a Regent or Steward to rule the realm while their children grow up. The Regent (in England) and the Steward (in Denmark)  both prove evil and treacherous, and in England the princess Goldborough is imprisoned, while in Denmark the two princesses are murdered while their brother prince Havelok survives only because he is taken away to England by the kindly fisherman who the Steward had ordered to kill the boy. Inevitably, Goldborough and Havelok are united, and both regain the rule of their lands. Overall it's a decent romance but not on the high level of Beowulf or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 

Space Cat

Space Cat (1952) was the first in a series of four children's books by Ruthven Todd.  They were pretty successful in the 1950s and 1960s. If the idea of a smart cat going with his astronaut keeper on a trip to the moon, where the cat discovers alien life in cavern, and saves the life of his astronaut companion, sounds interesting, then this book will appeal to you. For me, the book was pleasantly done but mostly outside my sympathies.

Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories

After my recent experience with Kevin Crossley-Holland's Wulf, I wondered whether I should bother with his collaboration, with Jill Paton Walsh, on Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories (1969), a slim book containing eight tales. I'd already bought the book, so I figured I'd read it anyway. I'm glad I did. The tales are gathered in pretty much historical order, chronologically, from early Anglo-Saxon times on to the final story set at the time of the Norman Conquest. What they do is to tell stories of various people, mostly ones unknown to history, and of the intersection of their lives with better known figures. The style of the telling varies. Some tales are more vibrant, others more introspective.  At first I wondered if the difference was related to which author wrote the tale, but after finding the key (on the table of contents, the authors initials are given after the page number, so one learns that Paton Walsh wrote four, and Crossley-Holland wrote four) the observed stylistic differences are not so easily accounted for. Crossley-Holland's tales usually have the more relevant historical association, as in "The Horseman," in which a deserter from the Battle of Maldon seeks assistance from the children of a  man who had left them and went on to be slaughtered, or in the final tale, "The Eye of the Hurricane," in which King Harold is dying on the battlefield in 1066 and recalls better moments in his life. Overall, it's a decent collection.

Wulf

Wulf (1988), by Kevin Crossley-Holland, is a revised omnibus of three very short books comprising "The Sea Stranger" trilogy, The Sea Stranger (1973), The Fire-Brother (1975), and The Earth-Father (1976). It's set in seventh-century England, on the east coast of Essex. It follows a young boy named Wulf and his friendship with Cedd, a historical figure and Christian missionary who founded a monastery in Ythancestir (modern Bradwell-on-Sea) in the 650s and later became a bishop. The book is clearly intended for the young adult audience. I approached it expecting a coming of age tale, with (I hoped) some vivid historical detail, but what I found instead is basically a piece of Christian propaganda. The characters are simplified down to the willing and eager acolyte, and his kindly and knowledgeable master. Yawn. This kind of stuff was trite when it was first published forty-some years ago, and it hasn't gotten any more palatable with the passing decades. 

The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde

Neil McKenna's The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde came out sixteen years ago, when there was already a bookcase full of Oscar Wilde biographies, but McKenna boldly ventured into Oscar's sex life in ways that most previous biographers had avoided. And McKenna turned up lots of sources previously untapped, like the voluminous diaries of George Ives, who recorded all sorts of confidences from his friends Oscar and Bosie. The end-result makes previous biographies seem almost G-rated. I'm glad to read all the details of the lives of Oscar and his many friends. Occasionally, though, there are some conclusions by McKenna that seem to stretch the facts a bit (e.g., McKenna takes as fact that Oscar was one of the authors, if not the major author, of the infamous pornographic novel Teleny, and though many Wilde scholars had questioned the evidence for Oscar's involvement and found it inconsistent and unreliable, McKenna does not mention any of it). Still, it's an important book for anyone interest in the whole British 1890s milieu.  

Shelf Life: Writers on Books and Reading

Shelf Life is a slim book collecting eleven essays, or extracts,  from writers discussing books and reading. The oldest is a piece by Francis Bacon from 1601, the most recent being one by Walter Benjamin from 1931.  Five are from the nineteenth century, while five (including the one by Benjamin) are from the early twentieth century.  Sadly, this gives a feeling of mustiness to the anthology, but there are some worthwhile observations here and there amidst the otherwise dated perspectives. Walter Benjamin opines that "writers are really people who write book not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like" (p. 17).  Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps the best-read of the presidents of the United States, writes with gusto in the best essay in this collection:

The equation of personal taste is as powerful in reading as in eating; and within certain broad limits the matter is merely one of individual preference, having nothing to do with the quality either of the book or of the reader's mind. I like apples, pears, oranges, pineapples, and peaches. I dislike bananas, alligator-pears, and prunes. The first fact is certainly not to my credit, although it is to my advantage; and the second at least does not show moral turpitude. (p. 54) 

Other essayists include Charles Lamb, Arthur Schopenhauer, W.E. Gladstone and Rudyard Kipling. A moderately diverting selection. 

Harmless Ghosts

Harmless Ghosts is a booklet of three short stories by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. (The title is ironic, for the ghosts are not really harmless....)  All are concerned with investigator Penelope Pettiweather, and take the form of letters written to friends about her supernatural experiences. The first and longest story, "The Hounds of the Hearth," is the best, but all three are enjoyable ghostly tales. Subsequent to reading this booklet, I have learned that the complete Penelope Pettiweather stories are collected in  The Complete Weird Epistles of Penelope Pettiweather, Ghost Hunter (2016). This volume contains fourteen tales. I'll add this to my wants list.