Well here we are, dear readers, at the second of our two special twentieth anniversary editions, and we hope that it will help to brighten up this tenebrous autumn.
One of the nice things about running a magazine for this long is that you can revisit and dialogue with your earlier articles. This edition leads with Neil's interview of the famously elusive esoteric author Magnus Mills, whose novelist career ran in parallel with his day job as a London bus driver, and whose work Neil first profiled for us back in 2010. The new article brings his examination of Mills' mystifying novels up to date, and Mills' sometimes gnomic answers to the interview questions don't disappoint, while they also shed some light on his oeuvre's more baffling aspects. It is sometimes the gaps in our understanding of a work that make it so magical, as Mary highlights in her exposition of Anglo-Saxon poetry and the genre's love of riddles which follows this article.
There have also been changes in the posthumous reputation of the Chinese author Chiang Yee, who called himself The Silent Traveller, since I reviewed The Silent Traveller in London in 2011. This kind, modest and humorous man has experienced a revival of interest in the last ten years, and was honoured with a blue plaque at his old Oxford address in 2019. While looking through my bookshelves recently I stumbled on the charming The Silent Traveller in Oxford, which describes Chiang's wartime experiences as a refugee from the Blitz in defiant search of beauty and contentment, with plates that conjure up an enchantingly delicate and bucolic vision of various Oxford landmarks.
In Art, Mark finds himself not altogether convinced by attempts to portray Edward Burne-Jones as a political radical rather than an otherworldly dreamer, while Paul enjoys a major re-evaluation of the work of Stanley Spencer's brother Gilbert and highlights his faithful, unromanticised depictions of country life. Books features Mark's review of a somewhat shocking new biography of Charlotte Brontë, which finds her telling William Makepeace Thackeray where to get off --among other revelations-- and Paul provides an illuminating discussion of the eighteenth-century craze for 'cabinets of curiosities' via the famous example contained in Sir John Soane's Museum.
Comfort television is very popular nowadays, and Mackenzie Crook's show The Detectorists is a veritable hot water bottle with its devoted friendship, hobbyism, and gentle routines of daily life in an obscure Essex village. It demonstrates that when English comedy focuses on the positive, it can rise to the level of truly great art; no wonder that it has amassed a global fan base.
In Music, Em provides reviews of a vintage recording of Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music with leading 1930s singers, a new release of Michael Tippett's anti-war secular oratorio A Child of Our Time, and a compilation of recordings of English music by the Canadian violinist Frederick Grinke. James enjoys a box set of Newcastle greats Lindisfarne, as well as re-releases of the Edgar Broughton Band and West Country mavericks Stackridge.
We hope that you enjoy this edition, and we look forward to steaming ahead into 2025!--The Editor
