Here is an index to some of the more central posts on this blog: Introductions, Themes, and Book Summaries. This index will be updated periodically.
Introductions:
* About
* An Introduction to Charles Williams
* A Reader’s Guide for Beginners
* Charles Williams’ Personality
* CW’s Writing Style
* CW’s early life 1886-1908
* CW’s life 1908-1939
* CW’s life 1939-1945
* Bibliography by Genre
* A Chronological Bibliography
* A Bibliography of Secondary Sources
* Sources on A.E. Waite and the F.R.C.
Themes:
1. Co-Inherence
2. Romantic Theology
3. The Ways of Affirmation and Negation
4. Ritual Objects
5. The Crisis of Schism
6. Mystical Tranquility
7. The City of God
8. Arthurian Legends and Metaphysical Anatomy
BOOK SUMMARIES
I’ve listed here every book I know about that was written by CW, with some significant editing projects and essays included, too. Titles in reddish font are still awaiting their summaries. Please contact me if you discover anything I’ve left off or gotten wrong. Thanks!
1902
Prince Rudolph of Silvania
undated/unfinished
Early Unfinished Plays
1912
The Chapel of the Thorn
The Silver Stair: part 1, part 2
“Arthurian Commonplace Book“
1917
Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse [as editor]
Poems of Conformity: post 1, post 2, post 3
1919
Christian Symbolism [by Michal Williams, ghost-written by CW?]
1921
Poems of Home and Overseas [as editor]
1924
Windows of Night: post 1, post 2
Amen House Poems
Outlines of Romantic Theology
note on endings for Edwin Drood
A Century of Poems for Celia
1926
“An Urbanity”
1927
The Masque of the Manuscript
A Book of Victorian Narrative Verse [as editor]
1928
The Witch
A Myth of Shakespeare
preface to Regency Verse
1929
The Masque of Perusal
The Rite of the Passion
1930
The Masque of the Termination of Copyright
Heroes and Kings: post 1, post 2, post 3
Poetry at Present
War in Heaven
introduction to the second edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poems
The Chaste Wanton
1931
Many Dimensions
The Place of the Lion summary; guest posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Heroines and Humility by Crystal Hurd part 1 and Heroines and Humility part 2
1932
The English Poetic Mind
The Greater Trumps
A Myth of Francis Bacon
1933
Bacon
Reason and Beauty in the Poetic Mind
The Story of Shakespeare
Shadows of Ecstasy
A Short Life of Shakespeare
Essays on literary subjects: “Lord Macaulay,” “Landor,” “The New Milton,” “John Milton,” “Two brief essays on Shakespearean topics,” “Alexander Pope,” “Rejoice in the Lamb,” “Gerard Hopkins,” “Religious Drama,” “Sound and Variations,” “Blake and Wordsworth”
1934
James I
The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning, retold by Williams
1935
The Detective Fiction Reviews of Charles Williams 1930-1935
“Et in Sempiternum Pereant.”
Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury
Rochester (guest post by Karl Persson)
Bethnal Green Pageant
Rochester
Introduction to The New Book of English Verse
1936
Seed of Adam
Queen Elizabeth I
The Story of the Aeneid
1937
Henry VII
Stories of Great Names
Descent Into Hell posts:
“It Still Scares Me” by Suzannah Rowntree
“Some of my Favorite Fiction” by John Zacharias
“It’s Damned Unpleasant” by Doug Jackson
“One of the Scariest Novels” by Philip Christman
1938
He Came Down From Heaven
Taliessin Through Logres (Index to Guest Posts)
“Anthropotokos”
Collects Composed for a Marriage
“Antichrist and the City’s Laws”
1939
The House by the Stable
The Death of Good Fortune
Judgement at Chelmsford
The Descent of the Dove
“Church and State”
preface to The Passion of Christ by Soren Kierkegaard
The Passion of Christ
“Religious Drama”
“Sensuality and Substance”
1940
Terror of Light
“Notes on the Arthurian Myth”
“One Way of Love”
“The Parable of the Wedding Garment”
Introduction to The English Poems of John Milton
introduction to Iby Soren Kierkegaard
“The Image of the City in English Verse”
“The Way of Affirmation” or “The Church Looks Forward”
1941
The Devil and the Lady, or Frontiers of Hell
Grab and Grace, or It’s the Second Step
Witchcraft
Religion and Love in Dante
“John Calvin”
“The Doctrine of Largess”
“The Liturgy”
“The Society of Jesus”
“The Way of Exchange”
The New Christian Year
“The Making of Taliessin”
“Charles Williams on Taliessin Through Logres”
“Natural Goodness”
“The Redeemed City”
1942
The Three Temptations
The Forgiveness of Sins
“The Chances of Myth”
“The Image of Man”
“The Index of the Body”
1943
The Figure of Beatrice
Intro to The Letters of Evelyn Underhill
“St. John”
“The Cross”
“The Jews”
“A Dialogue on Mr. Eliot’s Poem”
“A Dialogue on Hierarchy”
1944
The Region of the Summer Stars
“Augustine and Athanasius”
“Vergil”
“Malory and the Grail Legend”
1945
All Hallows’ Eve
The House of the Octopus
Posthumously Published
The Image of the City and other essays
To Michal from Serge
Letters to Lalage
“The Free Act”
introduction to The Duchess of Malfi
Collected Plays
Flecker of Dean Close
Arthurian Torso
The Noises That Weren’t There
The essays on Descent Into Hell were unfortunately not accessible just now.
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