Thanks in large part to the generosity of my supporters and the sponsorship of Northwind Seminary, I spent last week at the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton, IL. What a blessing that was! I certainly needed those days of rest, recovery, kindness, appreciation, and purpose. I think I can sense some healing starting in my heart.
I was there for two main reasons: to do research for The Oddest Inkling: An Introduction to Charles Williams and to give a lecture on CW’s plays. I’ll put up another post just about the lecture. As far as the research, my goal was to fill in gaps in my knowledge of CW and his works. I didn’t have a very organized plan besides that; my AC members and I had come up with a rough outline for the book, but I didn’t have a chance to make a research plan before I left. I mainly wanted to skim through a ton of stuff I hadn’t yet read: any unpublished poems, letters, the Raymond Hunt notebooks, play fragments, and whatever else I had time to open up.
I didn’t expect to find whole books’ worth of unpublished material! On Wednesday, I found eleven Arthurian poems that I don’t think have been collected yet (although I have to check whether any have appeared in the Charles Williams Quarterly). Then on Friday, 45 minutes before closing, I opened folders of The Advent of Galahad and Jupiter over Carbonek–and there are pages and pages of poetry that I don’t remember seeing everywhere else. Many of the poems are not included in Dodds’ Arthurian Poets volume. I’ll talk to Dodds and Lindop before going into any more detail, but once we ascertain which ones are really and truly unpublished (or at least uncollected), and if we get permission, John Mabry of Apocryphile would love to publish them.
In addition to the Arthurian poetry, I’d love to bring out the following:
Poems to Celia (written to Phyllis Jones during the height of their affair; reveals a deeper level of intimacy than previously known)
The Devil and the Lady or Frontiers of Hell (a theatrical version of the plot of All Hallows’ Eve)
The Noises that Weren’t There (three chapters of a novel he started, then abandoned, before turning to All Hallows’ Eve)
unfinished and unpublished play fragments
CW’s abridgement of Browning’s The Ring and the Book
CW’s abridgement of Virgil’s Aeneid
Gerry Hopkins’ novel Nor Fish Nor Flesh (a fictionalization of the love-triangle among Hopkins, Williams, and Phyllis Jones, featuring a highly unflattering characterization of Williams).
D.H.S. Nicholson’s novel The Marriage-Craft (a fictional exploration of the transmutation of sexual desire, written by one of Williams’s occult mentors. CW comes off better in this depiction).
I guess my TBW list (To Be Written) has just doubled in length. I don’t think I’ll live long enough to publish all these things, so I’d better up my rate of mentorship of younger scholars!
…speaking of which, I’ve started putting together a database of scholars working on CW. I think we should all get together on discord or some such to talk about our work, divide up the tasks, strategize publication and marketing plans, and so forth. Please let me know if you’d like to be added to that list. Thanks!
If you like the content on this blog, please consider supporting my work to enable me to dedicate more time to research and writing.
The Oddest Inkling 
A nuance here has escaped me: what’s the distinction between a poem being unpublished and being uncollected?
LikeLike
Good question. Some poems have been published only in an extremely limited way, such as in a journal, bulletin, magazine, or newsletter with a very small circulation. That makes it technically published, but such a publication is practically useless as far as the general reading public is concerned. Collecting it into a volume of poetry that’s published as a codex makes it available to far more readers. Thanks for asking!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exciting news, Sørina. I would like to be added to your database of scholars working on CW.
Gaven Ashenden quotes from and discusses “A Century of Poems for Celia” in Charles Williams: Alchemy & Integration and I read and copied some of them when I was at the Bodleian. I would be happy to see them published.
The Noises That Weren’t There was published in Mythlore no. 6-8 (v.2, no.2-4) I remember how excited I was to see those three chapters.
Oh, I have to get back to the Wade.
LikeLike
Yes, Sarah, you do have to get back to the Wade — as I’ve urged more than once. Have you been, since we were there together in (I’m guessing) the early ’80s?
LikeLike
Very exciting. I thought I had tracked down every Arthurian poem by CW. The edition I did with Grevel Lindop I thought the most complete yet – but it sounds as though you have found some gold. I’d be most interested to hear more if and when you can.
I have The Noises That Wern’t There and have even contemplated finishing it! Please add me to your list of CW scholars.
LikeLiked by 1 person
John, it’s lovely to hear from you! Thank you for offering to join my list. Would you please email me and let me know what contact info you’d like on the list? sorina[dot]higgins[at]gmail[dot]com. Thank you!
LikeLike
Thank you Sorina. Best contact details Graal[dot]@aol[dot]com. Look forward to hearing more about your work and those Arthurian poems.
LikeLike
Fascinating
LikeLiked by 1 person
This sounds analogous to the gold rush days in California or Yukon. The Wade is well known to have unpublicized treasures, but on this scale . . . who’d have thought? Had we but world enough and time –.but you are far from coy;.so generous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It would be great to see The Marriage-Craft and Nor Fish Nor Flesh reprinted.
I assume Nicholson is generally out of copyright, but not Hopkins.
Speaking of reprints, I suppose you mean the versions published when you name:
CW’s abridgement of Browning’s The Ring and the Book and CW’s abridgement of Virgil’s Aeneid – or have you found some new versions or related works? The published versions would be welcome reprints in any case.
While the versions of the three chapters published in published in Mythlore no. 6-8 (v.2, no.2-4) are freely available online as pdfs, The Noises that Weren’t There would be handy to have in a full version – the story of the course of Williams’s work on his seventh novel is fascinating, moving from this ‘version’ to the very different All Hallows’ Eve. (I am not sure I say anything about it in my Dictionary of Literary Biography article that Grevel Lindop does not include in his biography, but it’s worth checking both…) I am also not sure how much survives – or even how much Williams had decided upon – to complete it ‘as he intended’ (before changing his mind), but something like the late Jill Paton Walsh’s posthumous Wimsey novels would be intriguing!
The Devil and the Lady or Frontiers of Hell would be near the top of my list for new and fascinating!
The Masques of Amen House volume from the Mythopoeic Press has some selections from the Century of Poems for Celia, too, if I am not mistaken: the whole thing would be a welcome publication, as would other ‘Celia’ poetry.
Among the numerous things I have so far grotesquely failed to publish is a (more or less?) complete edition of the Advent of Galahad poetry, of which I only included a selection from the many never-before-published poems as well as versions of all the previously published ones in the Arthurian Poets series volume. I have entered into discussion with the Mythopoeic Press about publishing the rest of these, plus a number of later unpublished Arthurian poems (including ‘private’, occasional ones).
I look eagerly forward to learning just what constitutes Jupiter over Carbonek in the context of late poetry intended for publication!
From one thing and another I have heard, something else late and perhaps inviting a new edition – and certainly further study – is the Figure of Arthur ‘torso’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very exciting! Looking forward to hearing more as the writing projects come together!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Terry Glaspey on the Novels | The Oddest Inkling
I really, really want to know what Nor Fish Nor Flesh has to say about Williams and homosexuality, as you mentioned in https://theoddestinkling.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/nor-fish-nor-flesh/ — as someone who is a gay Christian and reveres Williams, I want to know for obvious reasons. I hope — at least where I assume he is now — that he (along with Lewis and others) does not think badly of me. But if he had things to say in this world, even second-hand, I’d love to know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for asking! CW seems to have been welcoming of various sexual orientations. In “Outlines of Romantic Theology,” he’s writing from a male POV and talking about the woman who is the object of desire, then adds in a parenthetical “or man when the orientation is homosexual.” His son was also gay, but I don’t know if that might have been part of the tension between them? Of course, in 1930s Britain (when homosexual activity was still illegal), it was tough to be either gay or the parent of a gay son and wasn’t something one talked about much publicly. I’m glad you’re here and prompting me to think about such questions; thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Inklings Scholar Interview: Sørina Higgins – Fellowship & Fairydust
Pingback: An Upcoming Adventure | The Oddest Inkling