Sunday, May 26, 2013

La Belle Dame Sans Merci - Keats Blog Tour

In the Georgette Heyer novels I love so much there are several mentions of the dangerous Lord Byron, but he had several contemporaries, known as the Romantic Poets, not all of whom had Byron’s entrĂ©e to ton society.  One such was John Keats (1795-1821), humbly born, and orphaned relatively young.  He took up medicine as a career, but his love of beauty and literature had found expression in poetry by his late adolescence.  Inspired by Spenser’s Faerie Queen, he entered “a new world of bright colour and honied language, of romantic adventure and chivalric devotion far above the level of actual life,” according to one biographer, Aileen Ward, and wrote his first poem.  
Keats' first poem was published in 1816, and my favorite, La Belle Dame San Merci, was written in 1819, early in his sadly short career (just two years later, he died of tuberculosis, the family disease).

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Shadow Castle by Marian Cockrell (Book Review)

Title: Shadow Castle
Author: Marian Cockrell
Illustrator: Olive Bailey
Publication Information: Whittlesey House, Hardcover, 1945; Scholastic, Paperbacks; iUniverse, paperback with chapters not included in the original edition, 2000.
Genre: Children's Fantasy
Plot: Lucy, a nine year old (presumably orphaned) who lives with her grandmother on a mountainside above a village, goes exploring in the deep, dark forest where she encounters a small white dog. The dog leads her through the forest into a valley where a handsome young man and a mysterious castle are waiting. The young man, Michael, shows her a tower room inhabited by the shadows of people who lived in the castle. They have waited for hundreds of years for their enchantment to be over and, coaxed, Michael spends the rest of the day telling Lucy (and the dog, Flumpdoria) stories about the magical inhabitants.
What I liked: Shadow Castle has enchanted me as well as several generations of readers! Michael tells Lucy about the magical prince who lived in the castle with his human wife Gloria, and Mika’s son Robin who runs afoul of a goblin kingdom. He describes Mika’s daughter Meira, sought after by many suitors, who leaves them behind to befriend and take tea with a dragon in one of the most memorable illustrations. Cockrell’s storytelling is so vivid the reader forgets Michael is merely telling Lucy a fairy tale.

About the Author: How I wish that my mother or I had written to Mrs. Cockrell to tell her how much we loved this book! We knew nothing about her but it turns out that Marian Cockrell and her husband Francis were both screenwriters in Hollywood, writing for shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Batman, Gunsmoke, and Perry Mason. Marian also wrote six adult novels, of which The Revolt of Sarah Perkins is my favorite. Her daughter, Amanda, is also a writer. Although I never met her, I sold and promoted at least one of Amanda’s books to B&N and Waldenbooks when I worked at Avon/Morrow. Of course, I noted the unusual name and read one of the books but it never really occurred to me she was related to Marian! If I had, there might have been an opportunity to interact with Marian who was alive until 1999 and to meet Amanda herself! It is wonderful that she preserved her mother’s legacy by bringing Shadow Castle back into print in 2000 with previously unpublished material.  This blogger followed up with Amanda and researched the author, Olive Bailey.
Source: This was one of my mother’s childhood favorites, and I inherited her dark green hardcover. The pages are yellowed, the dust jacket long gone, and it contains a note that it was “produced in full compliance with the government’s regulations for conserving paper and other essential materials” during WWII. I recommend Shadow Castle to girls who like fantasy with humor.  It's also a great comfort read!  There are many other fans online, most of whom found the book through Scholastic Book Services in the 60s.