Conan Doyle and Professor Challenger (Podcast)

This episode, Paul and I are delighted to welcome to the podcast Dr Stephen Carver, author, biographer and recipient of one of the ACD Society’s Inaugural Doylean Honours for his excellent Wordsworth Editions blog on the Professor Challenger stories. We talk with Stephen about the appeal of Professor Challenger to readers and to Conan Doyle, The Land of… Continue reading Conan Doyle and Professor Challenger (Podcast)

New Blog Project

I’m launching a new blog today called Tales from a Rat Biker. This is a project that’s very close to my heart and long overdue. Lockdown has given me the time to actually do it. This isn’t a blog about mechanics, or a particular brand. It’s more of a lifestyle/cultural history project, with articles on… Continue reading New Blog Project

Work in Progress

If anyone was wondering, this is what I'm currently writing. This project grew out of a panel I spoke on at The Bradford Literature Festival in 2019... THE OPIUM EATERS: High Literature and the Art of Addiction (Morton Books) When the brilliant Oxford drop-out and freelance journalist Thomas De Quincey published his seminal article ‘Confessions of… Continue reading Work in Progress

‘A Strange Idolatry’

Extract of a piece I wrote for Wordsworth Editions just before Christmas on The Picture of Dorian Gray... In a news cycle that has just seen conservative commentators lose it over Harry Styles appearing on the cover of December’s Vogue wearing a Gucci evening dress under a tux, it feels in every way appropriate to celebrate… Continue reading ‘A Strange Idolatry’

The Haunting of Bly Manor

Extract from a contextual review for Wordsworth Editions, originally entitled ‘Based on the Writings of Henry James’: The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents and The Haunting of Bly Manor'. The Turn of the Screw has been adapted many times (it was even turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten in 1954), but it is… Continue reading The Haunting of Bly Manor