An article in The King magazine, 9th May 1903, on Newcastle-under-Lyme… “it is one of the healthiest towns in the kingdom, the last annual report of the medical officers showing the lowest death rate for twenty years”.

My quick survey of interesting texts coming out of copyright at the start of 2019, the author having died in 1948. It doesn’t seem to be an especially rich year, in terms of the “big names”.

* Alfred Edward Woodley Mason, author of Fire Over England (a beleaguered Queen Elizabeth I prepares for invasion by the tyrannical Spanish), and The Four Feathers (a filmed war novel). Other historical adventure novels such as The House of the Arrow and The Prisoner in the Opal, plus stories and some non-fiction.

* Montague Summers, a poet who also wrote many non-fiction books on belief in vampires and witches. Also Architecture and the Gothic Novel, and The Gothic Quest: a History of the Gothic Novel.

* Denton Welch, novelist and short story writer who influenced William S. Burroughs.

* W. Paul Cook, friend of H.P. Lovecraft and author of the important memoir In Memoriam: Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

* Samuel Whittell Key, author of a series of stories featuring his ‘occult detective’ character Prof. Arnold Rhymer.

* Guy Ridley, author of the tree-ish fantasy The Word of Teregor (1914).

* Jesse Edward Grinstead, popular writer of a great many Wild West novels.

* Rupert Gould, a cryptozoologist who published popular books such as The Loch Ness Monster and Others, A Book of Marvels, and Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts.

* Henry Marten, private tutor of Queen Elizabeth II. His pre-PC The Groundwork of British History (1912) became “one of the most used school textbooks of the first half of the twentieth century”. There was a 1923 edition, possibly simply a reprint. His The New Groundwork Of British History in 1943 updated this standard textbook to 1939 and continued its use in schools into the 1950s. But the 1943 edition was a multi-author work, and thus is presumably not going into the public domain. There was a later reprint in 1964. Various versions including 1943 can be freely found on Archive.org.

* D’arcy Wentworth Thompson, who published an acclaimed translation of Aristotle’s The History of Animals.

* Arthur G. T. Applin. An actor and a ‘name’ in the theatre world, as a writer he seems to have been prolific and with a wide range. An early writer for Mills and Boon, with Chorus Girls (1906) and The Stage Door (1909), but his well-reviewed town novels such as Shop Girls (real-life shop-girls of the 1910s) appears to have upped the tone considerably and somewhat evaded ‘the M&B formula’. Later produced countryside books such as Philandering Angler (memoirs of fishing and philandering), popular mysteries such as Blackthorn Farm, and even The Stories of the Russian Ballet. His later reviews in the 1920s and 30s emphasise his ability churn out swift-paced pulp-ish page-turners, with romantic settings ranging from racecourse to desert.

Also of note is S. J. Simon, a popular British mystery and historical-comedy writer, but only because his novels were written with a fellow writer who didn’t die until 1982. Thus his work is not going into the public domain.

Bill Brandt, “Evening Light in Burslem 1937”.

Purchasers of my H.G. Wells book may be interested in this good clear (if rather small) picture of the Etruria Woods, albeit as they barely remained in 1964 — as the era of heavy industry entered its final decades and neared its end.

Centre of picture, and in the ravine running off to the left. With what appears to be scrubby moorland to the right indicating more of the struggling remains. The towers are coal-mine winding towers.

I couldn’t find even a half-decent map of the Derbyshire Dales administrative area, via search engines. So I made one. Here it is… extracted from deep inside the local Council’s Local Plan PDF and usefully laid onto a wider map showing its relationship to the Peak District, the Staffordshire Moorlands, and the M6 motorway. As well as nearby Derby there is also a West Coast mainline rail station at Stoke-on-Trent, with fast regular connections to London and Manchester. The local railway station at Uttoxeter will also take you deep into the wilds of the East Midlands and then connect to take you over to the east coast, albeit on a lesser train.

Settlement dot size reflects population size. Green = The Peak District National Park, which the Dales don’t overlap.

A macabre / fantasy illustrator duo from Rhode Island, a placename which is of course familiar to all who thrill to supernatural literature. John La Farge (1835–1910, lived and died in Providence, Rhode Island) and his engraver Henry Marsh (American, 1826–1912). Bed-ridden early in his career and in need of the cash, La Farge produced fairly loose watercolour designs which were engraved by Marsh and published in the upmarket Riverside Magazine for Young People. The “water-lily” picture appeared in an anthology of poetry. La Farge went on to a strong career in stained glass design.

Apparently these fantastical works were remade in oils some 15-20 years later, and were then presumably shown in Providence circa 1885 (give or take five years). One then wonders if a later sight of “Bishop Hatto and the Rats” might have been a boyhood influence leading to the famous horror story “The Rats in the Walls? Le Farge died at Butler Hospital in Providence in 1910, and there must have been good accounts of his life in the obituaries. Had Lovecraft known the picture, then he would have especially enjoyed the combination of a great bristling malkin of a cat, a churchman, and the rats, all done by an artist from his beloved Rhode Island.

“Bishop Hatto and the Rats”.

“The Wolf-charmer”.

“The Giant and the Travelers”.

“The Fisherman and the Afrit”. An afrit (also called afreet or ifriit) is a mischievous solo creature, similar but far less powerful than a jinn (genie), and they are probably best likened to ‘the imps of the jinn‘.

“The spirit of the water-lily”.

A. R. Smith, “Mow Cop” in oils. Style and age of the label on the back suggests later 1930s or 40s. A Google Books search suggests he was active 1920-1940.

The Wolseley Gyrocar, made in Birmingham, seen here in November 1913 before a successful test run around the streets of the city. Once started up the two-wheeler was firmly stabilised by gyroscopes which spun at 2,000 r.p.m. The inventor is the man on the left of the picture.

Fully clad in bodywork, fitted out with upholstery and with the internal gyro giving the ‘levitation’ effect…

The plans… if you were thinking of re-making it as a 3D model.

The Birmingham Oratory, at about the time (1902-1911) that Tolkien and his brother would have been boys there. Two boys can just about be seen peeping out from under the shady trees.

Grotesque Animals: Invented, Drawn, and Described by E.W. Cooke (1872), co-creator with James Bateman of eccentric gardens at Biddulph Grange in North Staffordshire. The book followed Lear’s Book of Nonsense by a few years, but the drawings were begun in 1864, a few years after Biddulph Grange was completed and Bateman had sold up and moved away. The book has 24 plates, not well reproduced here in this partial 14-plate reconstruction, as subtle shades and tones are lost. Each monster is explained briefly on a following page, but only one of these text pages can be found.

Plate V – too small to include in the partial reconstruction…

“Smutts on thowl washin’ agin…”

Superb art for the rare Golden Cockerel Press edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 1952. Issued in a fine edition of only 60 copies, it appears to go for about £500 these days.