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I've always rather envied those Victorian gentlemen scholars who used the leisure of their circumstances to energetically push back the boundaries of imagination in both the arts and sciences (while watching their split infinitives, of course), as opposed to the other toffs who simply hurried along the socialist revolution through their arrogance and self-indulgence, and quite rightly too (the semi-successful revolution I mean). Unless in a previous life, I've not been that lucky, lacking the necessary independent wealth. But I have nevertheless been very lucky in having been allowed, one way or another, to ride most of my hobby-horses anyway. Here in my imaginary mansion you can find many of them, beginning with the most recent, and the book that is closest to my heart so far. Its launch date appropriately enough was 1 November, or Samhain in the Celtic faery calendar, but we gave it a kind of pre-publication launch at the Faery, Angel & Healing Fayre 2007 in St Johns Hall, Penzance, Cornwall on the weekend of the 27 and 28 October. Thanks to everyone who made this happen, especially Karen Kay who organised the event, because it was a lovely weekend and you couldn't hope to meet a finer crowd of faeries.
The wonderful chance came along in 2006 to write Faeries of the Celtic Lands, a book I've been wanting to do for over half my life, thanks to my publisher Cameron Brown who simply asked over lunch in the Chelsea Arts Club in London what I would most like to write about. Click on the cover for some sample pages.
Celtic mythology has long been one of my obsessions and although I've squeezed snippets of it into many books, the only previous chance I had to concentrate on it to any great extent was in the 1999 book on Leprechauns I wrote for Wayne Anderson to illustrate. So this was a complete delight, even if it did mean that for months I was barely able to hold a sensible conversation about anything else with friends and family, let alone work colleagues. But, it still felt worthwhile because doing this book justice mattered more than anything else.
The aim of the book is to trace the origins of the Celtic beliefs about faeries back to the misty days of their first arrival in Ireland, apparently descending from the sky in flying ships and landing on the mountain tops amid a great cloud that shrouded the land for three days. According to legend they then ruled the country as gods for an age before being forced to retreat into a parallel world, or sail away westwards across the ocean like Tolkien's elves. From the earliest Irish records the tale is then taken up in the legends of the other Celtic lands - Wales, Scotland, Brittany and Cornwall.
At 224 pages the book is a fair bit longer than most I've had published so far, in proportion to my interest in the topic, though without anywhere near exhausting it. The idea is to give a kind of overview of the subject for those who are curious and even quite well informed about Celtic mythology, but daunted by its abundance and seeming chaos. Also to examine how the basically pagan ideas in the faerie faith nevertheless managed to survive and prosper alongside Christianity right up to about a century ago when other forces undermined the solid belief in faeries in the Celtic countryside.
For a couple of online reviews click HERE and HERE. To order a copy from the publisher click HERE.
By way of contrast, the intended follow-up for autumn 2008 in a similar format is the book on vampires you see on the right. It hasn't been quite as long in the gestation as Faeries but I have been writing it on and off for over ten years and it will be great to see it in print at last, with Bruce Pennington's original black and white drawings. In person Bruce is the sweetest and mildest person but he just happens to have a wonderfully gothic imagination and is at his best when depicting monsters and demons. To see a selection of his work visit his website HERE
The drawings were originally commissioned by my friend Tom Casey in Dublin. After making an unexpectedly good profit on a business deal he tossed up whether to buy himself a flash new motor or commission some original art and, well, you can soon see the result. I've posted some sample pages here if you just click on the cover.
The idea for doing this book first came from being asked to write an introduction for a reprint of Sabine Baring-Gould's classic 1865 Book of Werewolves, because I was taken by his curiously healthy angle on an equally morbid topic. What impressed me was the fascinated but detached angle he took on the subject. There was something so refreshingly wholesome about it that I wondered if something similar could be done with vampires. So that is what I set about doing, hanging a rosary above my desk just in case. Curiously, many of the sources I delved into were the same as I used along the way for a book about Angels.
Below is a little Halloween trilogy that came out in the autumn of 2006. Each book is about a hundred pages long and the size of a normal paperback but beautifully produced in hardback with a dust cover. Click on the covers for some sample spreads.
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The books are available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble; or from the publisher using the links below:
If you want to hear me rambling on about these and other interesting topics like unicorns and leprechauns, visit the Archive page on the World of the Unexplained site where you can either listen to or download an interview I did with them in May 2006 (it's down near the foot of the list - feel free to get distracted by other interviews).
Or you can just download the interview directly HERE. It's a 50 Mb file so may take a while.
Published in April 2007 in the same format
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One of the best adventures of 2005 on the publishing front was a visit at Easter to Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell in Pennsylvania for a new book. It snowed both sides of the Atlantic which caused some stress on the way to the airport both ways. Then, having neglected to carry their address with me, I was hauled off by US Immigration to the little room reserved for dodgy arrivals. Luckily I had at the last moment remembered to make a note of their mobile numbers, so we were able to catch them in another part of the airport. However, despite these and other obstacles Ultimate Collection took shape marvellously and came out in the autumn. As ever, it was a privilege to work immediately with two masters of their particular art who also happen to be wonderful people. The title also turned out to be quite prophetic because after ten happy years of collaboration during very turbulent times in the publishing world, it was the last book I wrote for them. Julie's sons having taken over the honours; and very ably too.
The other most exciting thing was the Dragon Tarot that I did with Linda and Roger Garland, which also came out in the autumn. Click on the cover left to get a taste of it. It'll open in a new window that you just close to return here.
2004 was a pretty poor year on the publishing front, with the cancellation of our Chinese astrology series after Wayne Anderson and I had actually finished Year of the Monkey. With hindsight what we should have done was follow Year of the Dragon with a larger book covering all the symbols. However, the great thing about age is that along with the years comes a certain sense of perspective. Everything goes in cycles, especially publishing. I spent the year mainly on web design, as previous visitors may have noticed from various flourishes here.
A publishing highlight of 2003 was the launch of Year of the Goat, which had the best cover in the series in my opinion (being a Capricorn I am possibly biased), and is also available in Dutch. Best adventure of all though was a meeting at last with Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. We were trying to get a book going by transatlantic telephone as we'd managed often enough before, but this time it simply wasn't getting anywhere. So half-jokingly we suggested to our editor Colin Ziegler that Chrysalis fly me over there. Well, a fortnight later I found myself in Pennsylvania in the snow and we got to do the book face to face. On the left you see me in their garden, and I have to say that their talent as artists is only matched by their charm and hospitality as people. The book's called Fantasy Workshop and I'm very proud of my contribution to it.
Immediately on return to England I had the honour of being invited to Broadcasting House in London to participate in a BBC Radio 4 programme by Kirsty Walker called In Search of Unicorns. Click on the radio right to get the programme and see its review in the Radio Times (the radio incidentally is one my wife and I used to listen to in the kitchen until about ten years ago when it finally packed up after about half a century's worth of service). The show was repeated on Radio 4 in the autumn of 2004, something I only discovered by accident while taxi-ing our teenage daughter somewhere on a Sunday morning.
In the autumn of 2003 I had the honour of helping judge the V&A Illustration Awards for the second time and went to the presentations and opening of the related exhibition, but you can only be a judge twice so that was the end of that little adventure, apart from being invited to the 2004 awards.
Year of the Horse came out for the Chinese New Year in February 2002, with illustrations as always by Wayne Anderson and prompted by enthusiasm for our Year of the Dragon book the year before. A larger part of this one was taken up by astrology, for obvious reasons, but where it differs from all the other books or chapters you'll find with 'Year of the Horse' in the title is that a large (and for me the most interesting) part of this book looks into the overall symbolism of the Horse in ancient Chinese culture; and therefore why it's there in the zodiac. That was the really interesting thing about this series - it offered a chance to explore China through its culture. Almost as good as - and in some ways better - than actually visiting the place, which our publisher's budget didn't quite run to. It would be lovely to check out all the interesting places that show up in these Chinese astrology books, though. If I ever get rich I have the itinerary already planned.
A high point of 2002 was being invited to judge the National Art Library Illustration Awards, more catchily rechristened the V&A Illustration Awards for the occasion. This was a special honour because the Victoria & Albert Museum in London was one of my favourite places when studying Engineering at Imperial College next door while trying to think of a way of getting into the arts. As it happens Imperial College was as good a place as any to do it, given my own particular slant on the arts, because the art schools at the time weren't doing much very useful really, as far as my interests went anyway. On the left you see me in those days with my lovely girlfriend of the time, Cathy Moynihan from Boston, Massachussets. The setting is Prince's Gardens just up the road from the V&A, where I lived in the student halls for a year.
In a way the V&A is the model for this website. Part of the pleasure of the place is just wandering and coming across odd and fascinating things which set off all kinds of trains of imagination. It's quite easy to get lost in there and forget why you came in.
Meanwhile work carried on as Wayne and I collaborated again on a book about hedge witches provisionally titled Granny's Grimoire, which is kind of a follow-up to Leprechauns and Gnomes, even though the subjects are more flesh-and-blood creatures by most people's reckoning . . .
2001 was a very productive year, seeing the publication at last of The Angel Companion illustrated with a variety of ancient to modern classic pictures. This was a real labour of love. Most of the writing was done two or three years before, but then the book fell into a kind of limbo until for some reason Pavilion's enthusiasm returned. Go to the BOOKS link at the top or bottom of the page for more about it, or any of the other books mentioned here.
Despite commissioning me for the book, I don't think my editor had the faintest idea that I had already spent many years investigating the subject so had a bit of a head start, having half the source material within immediate reach. I dedicated it to my mother Caryl for many reasons (not least being the Catholic upbringing that initiated the interest) but sadly she died suddenly just before the first copy arrived. There is a certain irony in that which I hope she appreciated.
Bob Eggleton's Greetings from Earth meanwhile won us a joint Hugo for Best Related Book (i.e.non-fiction) 2001, though I've yet to receive my chrome, rocket-shaped trophy because in the current climate it doesn't seem a great idea to try and mail it . . . And Wayne Anderson was overall winner of the 2001 National Art Library's Illustration Award for his Gnomes and Gardens illustrations. There was an exhibition of some of his and the runners-up's illustrations at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from December till the end of February 2002. You can see samples of all these books and others in my web Library, and for a video of me making a fool of myself about gnomes just click on the vintage TV below.
If you're interested in going further back in time, there's a link below to an interview I gave in 2000 to Paul Barnett for Paper Snarl, the e-zine he then ran in harness (more or less) with Paper Tiger Books. It's a bit of a soft option I know, and he said some things that are far too kind really, but if you want to catch up on my situation back at the turn of the Millennium, click on the heading below. It has the benefit of a degree of detachment, as Paul and I hardly knew each other at the time.
Regarding the last few books mentioned there, Year of the Dragon had a happy launch with the Chinese New Year of 2000 and apparently the first run sold out in the States in a few weeks. Which was a bit galling as the Chinese New Year enthusiasm had rather worn off by the time new copies were available and the US was where most of our books were then selling through a co-publication deal with Barnes & Noble. However, it continued to sell solidly for several years and for a while in the US it apparently became the bestselling of all Barnes & Noble's own published titles. As for the idea mentioned in the interview, for a book collecting all the great influences on modern fantasy art, well that's slowly taking shape in the Gallery. I've added an exhibition there of William Blake illustrations.
May 2008
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