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Post by Knygathin on Feb 17, 2023 12:42:28 GMT
I strongly urge that we try to focus the contents of is thread around M. P. Shiel. For this is the only M. P. Shiel thread on the Vault so far. He gets very little attention overall. Let's keep it on the rail here.
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Post by andydecker on Feb 17, 2023 14:09:17 GMT
Two Shiel books were translated. The Purple Cloud was published as a Science Fiction Classic in the large Heyne Science Fiction imprint in 1981 as a mass market paperback. Prince Zaleski was published in 2017 by small press publisher Edition Phantasia in a very limited edition. It is four stories.
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Post by helrunar on Feb 17, 2023 14:38:14 GMT
That's such a gorgeous cover and design for that Prince Zaleski edition. This notice of publications speaks of Shiel having revised several of his books (and perhaps the tales as well) later in life. I seem to recall Sam Moskowitz mentioning this as well but I read that book nearly half a century ago out of a library copy so I have no way to confirm if he mentioned this. tartaruspress.com/s4.htmHere's an interesting article by one John D. Squires, whose topic is Shiel's collaboration with W. T. Stead, but quite a bit of other interesting information is given as well. I had no idea Shiel had written so much, and in so many genres. attackingthedevil.co.uk/stead-shiel-and-the-rajahs-sapphire/Hel.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 18, 2023 4:55:12 GMT
Here's an interesting article by one John D. Squires, whose topic is Shiel's collaboration with W. T. Stead, but quite a bit of other interesting information is given as well. I had no idea Shiel had written so much, and in so many genres. attackingthedevil.co.uk/stead-shiel-and-the-rajahs-sapphire/Hel. Interesting.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 18, 2023 6:00:04 GMT
In the Hippocampus edition, at the beginning of "The Case of Euphemia Raphash", "thank you" has been replaced by "thanks". Was the contraction "thanks" spoken and written in 1895? To me it sounds so modern and sloppy, not befitting the well dressed and behaved genteel of that time. I think if I buy an actual physical edition of Shiel's works this won't be it. I shall have none other than this. My infatuation with the front cover illustration is inescapable, and the compact neatness of the collection is very convenient. It is my occult destiny. I am too late to Shiel, and too casual an admirer, to collect any original editions. The online Roy Glashan's Library versions I quoted from earlier, cannot be trusted, being carelessly transcribed. I have a pdf of the original Shapes in Fire (1896), and can find no fault with the stories taken from it. I wish I had a pdf of The Pale Ape and Other Pulses (1911), but it is nowhere to be found. All the short stories (and novelettes) are from these two collections.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 18, 2023 21:14:24 GMT
My infatuation with the front cover illustration is inescapable That may sound odd since most of the illustration is covered by graphic pattern and lettering. But what little of it is visible has a mystical quality to its details, that I think belong to the spiritual era when these stories were written. A young artist active today named J. T. Lindroos is credited as the artist, something I find hard to believe, although I would be delightfully surprised if such was the case.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 19, 2023 13:18:07 GMT
There is also the Penguin edition of The Purple Cloud available. Dull cover art, but Penguins are usually reliable, without eccentric editorial somersaults. It reprints the full 1901 edition, and also includes the illustrations from the original book.
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 19, 2023 13:20:06 GMT
What quality does Shiel possess, that Poe doesn't?
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 7, 2023 16:43:53 GMT
In the Hippocampus edition "thank you" has been replaced by "thanks". Was the contraction "thanks" spoken and written in 1895? To me it sounds so modern and sloppy, not befitting the well dressed and behaved genteel of that time. I looked it up in an etymology dictionary. First known use of thanks was before the 12th century (... let me calculate, ... yes, that was before the 1100s). Can't was first used in 1597. Isn't in 1608. Amazing how modern people were all the way back then. They probably spoke and behaved just like we do now.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 7, 2023 17:49:51 GMT
Amazing how modern people were all the way back then. They probably spoke and behaved just like we do now. They wore their baseball caps backwards just like we do!
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 7, 2023 18:05:39 GMT
Can't was first used in 1597. Isn't in 1608. There were considerably more contractions in older written English than in modern. Read some Shakespeare, you ne'er-do-well! Or, if that is not an option, have a look at this.
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 9, 2023 10:43:46 GMT
I looked again at the Gutenberg text from the original 1901 publication of The Purple Cloud, and it is full of can't, thanks, and other modern sloppy Shakespearean contraptions, fractions, and whatnot. I don't think Joshi meddled with it too much. I am all ready to dive into the Hippopotamus book - and i's gonna to be greeeaaaat! But first I have some other things to attend to.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Apr 19, 2023 13:28:59 GMT
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 21, 2023 15:10:02 GMT
What quality does Shiel possess, that Poe doesn't? Perhaps not as wise as Poe - but a richer language for those of us, including me, who likes that kind of artistic decadence and obsession, and grow impatient with the moderate.
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Post by Knygathin on Apr 21, 2023 15:29:28 GMT
Images from Huguenin's Wife. First published in Pall Mall magazine, April 1895. ... Thank you. Interesting to see. The 1800s were a really dark, mossy, and stiff time, although it did produce some great literature. Fantastic art became much better after the 1800s I think, peaking towards the latter half of the 1900s. But starting in the 1990s along with the beginning of the Internet, the quality of visual art took a drastic drop, and today it is abominable, nearly without any redeeming qualities. Very amateurish. As far as I am concerned no great painters exist today. Whatever talents there may be, have become too distracted, and mentally fragmented by the digital age, to patiently develop their talent and produce anything of worth.
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