Bloomsbury Literary Studies

The Greatest Literary Moustaches!

It’s Movember and we love a good literary moustache. So much so, we’ve put together a collection of our all-time favourites! From the Walrus to the Mexican, and the Handlebar to the Horseshoe, it seems there is no end to the amount of creative facial topiary in the literary world… Something tells me Shakespeare set a trend.

Mark Twain

‘There has been nothing as good since’ said Ernest Hemingway about Mark Twain’s legendary book Huckleberry Finn. But, he could just as well have been talking about Twain’s famous moustache.

Mark Twain wasn’t without opinion when it came to facial hair, directing the following vitriol towards the beard: ‘it performs no useful function; it is a nuisance and a discomfort; all nations hate it; all nations persecute it with the razor’. Must have been why he plumped for this rather impressive looking moustache. And with matching eyebrows too.

Read our Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair guide to Mark Twain. It reveals all sorts of fantastic facts about this intriguing writer... did you know that he started smoking at 7 and often smoked 40 cigars a day? Nope, me neither. Pretty impressive shocking.

Rudyard Kipling

‘Being kissed by a man who didn’t wax his moustache was like eating an egg without salt’. We couldn't agree more Rudyard Kipling.

This 'tash is so impressive that we've opted for a side portrait shot so you can really see the full depth of this impressive literary bush. Look out for our new book on Rudyard Kipling and Japan - no other leading English literary figure of his day spent so long in that country or wrote so fully about it.

George Orwell

George Orwell said, in his famous 6 Rules for Writing, ‘Never use a long word where a short one will do’. It would seem he had the same approach to moustaches. I’m calling this one... modest yet confident.

George Orwell also wrote an essay in the Evening Standard in 1946 about his rules for drinking tea. Whilst not related in any way to moustaches, I still think it deserves a special mention. Orwell employed the essay as a tool to entertain, illuminate and provoke readers as well as help him fashion his distinctive 'literary' voice. George Orwell the Essayist by Peter Marks gives these compelling pieces the critical attention they merit.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

What can we say about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s moustache? It’s a wonder he had any time to write considering the hours he must have put in taming and trimming this sublime example of facial topiary.  I know what you must be thinking, ‘I WISH I could get my hands on some of his moustache trimmings’. Well, I’m afraid the opportunity has been and passed, with one moustache & ACD fan purchasing his moustache trimmings. They came neatly packaged up in the original envelope they were kept in for so many years with the following inscription: ‘My beloved moustache hairs’. I'm sure the new owner feels the same.

Walt Whitman

Is it a moustache or a beard? Are there side-burns in there? We can't quite figure it out. And that's what makes Walt Whitman's contributions to facial topiary so impressive.

In Whitman’s Queer Children, Catherine Davies looks at 'the anxious relationship between the homosexual and his American home'  in the work of four gay twentieth-century poets - Hart Crane, Allen Ginsberg, James Merrill and John Ashbery. Dwelling on the nurturing adaptable heritage of Walt Whitman, she considers Whitman’s renegotiation of the dialectic between the public and the private as a context for the project of the homosexual epic.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche sports the unique looking walrus-handlebar moustache. Otherwise known as the moustache that launched a thousand philosophical arguments (and its own facebook page). 

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche posits the Übermensch as a goal that humanity can set for itself. Did he set this goal for his own facial hair? There is one thing we can be sure of – he set the philosophical world alight with this revolutionary 'tash.

Still a bit confused? Nietzsche: A Guide for the Perplexed will tell you everything you need to know.

Edgar Allen Poe

It's fair to say that EAP employed his moustache in a rather gothic manner. An article in Scribner’s Magazine in 1878 reveals that 'He wore a dark mustache, scrupulously kept, but not entirely concealing a slightly contracted expression of the mouth and an occasional twitching of the upper lip, resembling a sneer. This sneer, indeed, was easily excited — a motion of the lip, scarcely perceptible, and yet intensely expressive. There was in it nothing of ill-nature, but much of sarcasm … '

So impressive was his moustache that is spawned this imaginative looking t-shirt. If anyone could let me know where to buy it, I’d really appreciate it.

An inescapable black pit, an innocent buried alive, and the deranged hallucinations of a murderer all haunt Tales of Mystery and Imagination - a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's most celebrated chilling stories.

Ernest Hemingway

All hail Ernest Hemingway's contribution to the moustache world! We know that he loved hunting in Africa, bullfighting in Spain, deep-sea fishing in Florida and this is the perfect moustache to match. Hemingway married four times, often falling for one woman while still married to another. With this dashing moustache I think we can see why he was so irresistible to women.

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez once characterised common European perceptions of Latin America as ‘a man with a moustache and a guitar and a revolver’. He might have kept the moustache, but he certainly broke other pre-existing stereotypes by putting Latin American writing on the literary map.

If a moustache could ever be described as ‘friendly’ then this is certainly it. You can find out more about this compelling man by reading our biography by Gerald Martin and literary guide to Love in the Time of Cholera by Tom Fahy.

Stefan Zweig

Born in Vienna in 1881, Stefan Zweig was one of the most respected authors of his time. And not just for his epic looking moustache. The Economist hailed him as a 'Secret Superstar' and the New Yorker called him an 'Escape Artist' earlier this year.

Foreseeing Nazi Germany's domination of Europe, Zweig and his wife left Austria in 1933. Despairing at Europe's future and feeling increasingly isolated, they committed suicide together in 1942. As Zweig's correspondence all but ceased with the outbreak of World War II, little is known about his final years. Stefan and Lotte Zweig's South American Letters, edited by Darién J. Davis and Oliver Marshall, reproduces personal letters written by the couple during this time and creates a fascinating picture of the last years of this famed author, cast adrift by the rise of Nazism and enforced exile.

Joseph Conrad

Some critics have commented that Joseph Conrad was known for his pessimistic writing style and stark presentation of the human condition. I don’t think he helped matters with this harsh looking moustache. There is one thing that the critics certainly agree upon - Heart of Darkness is a landmark text of 20th century literature that continues to resonate to this day. We certainly love it. One of our latest books, Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Contemporary Thought by Nidesh Lawtoo brings this book into philosophical dialogue and includes the first publication in English of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's essay, 'The Horror of the West', described by J. Hillis Miller as 'a major essay on Conrad's novel, one of the best ever written'.

That's it for our literary moustache round up! Of course we couldn't include everyone - Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Gustave Flaubert... the list could go on and on. It would also be impossible to choose a favourite. But we want to hear from you -  who would get your vote for the most impressive literary moustache? Who can't you believe that we have left out? Is there any obscure Russian writer with a more impressive offering than Nietzsche (probably)?  Let us know so we can add it to our literary moustache hall of fame.

In the meantime, good luck to anyone still plugging away at their Movember efforts. The crowd above would be very proud.

Jenny Tighe

Literary Laughs

On a gloomy late-autumn Monday (at least here in London), I’m sure I can’t be the only one who might be on the look out for something to lighten the mood...

With impeccable timing, Continuum Literary Studies is coming to the rescue with our latest publication: The Comic Mode in English Literature. Starting in the middle ages and going right up to the present this book is a wide-ranging look at comedy in literary history:  Chaucer’s in here; there’s a chapter on Shakespeare’s Falstaff; Pope, Austen, Wilde and Beckett all make appearances and there’s even a chapter on Bridget Jones’s Diary.

For those of us who are serious about our comedy, humorous literature can often prove trickier to analyse seriously than apparently weightier genres like tragedy or epic. Accessibly written by a very experienced teacher (Murray Roston of Bar Ilan University, Israel and UCLA), this book starts with a quick critical survey of historical theories of comedy before systematically testing them out on the canon of comic literature. We'll have a free preview up soon but in the meantime, you can find out more information about the book here!

Writing this has got me thinking of one of my favourite book-related quotes, from the inimitable Groucho Marx: “From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.”

What are your favourite book-related one-liners?? Leave a comment and let us know!

David,
Senior Editor,
Continuum Literary Studies

A Flying Start to the Academic Year – New Books for Students

The summer really seems to have vanished in the blink of an eye, hasn’t it? All of a sudden, here we are at the start of a new academic year! So while some of you may be planning lectures and seminars, or returning to study or even heading off to University for the first time, I thought it would be a good week to highlight some of our recently published student guides.

Our Texts and Contexts series is designed to guide students of English literature through the various contexts – cultural, critical and historical – of the books that they will be reading in class. It’s a very smartly put together series, covering not only the original contexts of publication but also providing guides to the key texts in a particular field and also accounts of the afterlives of these works. To help students get the most out of their studies the books also include guides to further reading and online resources as well as “research questions” to promote further thought, discussion and study.

We have two new books in the series that have recently published. Children’s Literature in Context offers students a guide to one of the most popular undergraduate courses, ranging from Lewis Carroll’s Alice books through The Wizard of Oz and the Narnia chronicles to the Harry Potter saga and Philip Pullman. The book also covers the plethora of film and TV adaptations of these classic works that, for many of us, shape our reading habits for the rest of our lives.

The Contemporary American Novel in Context sets the scene for those studying US fiction from 1980 to the present. The book explores the contexts for such writers as Bret Easton Ellis, Toni Morrision, Cormac McCarthy and Don Delillo and the ways in which some of the most important and globally recognizable names in contemporary literature have grappled with such topics as the ‘War on Terror’, globalization and identity politics. This book also covers the rise of online fan communities around some of these iconic authors, bringing the story right up to date. There's a free preview of the book that you can access by clicking on the button next to the book jacket.

Or, you can check out the Texts and Contexts series page to find out more about these and current and future books in the series.

Happy reading!

David

Senior Editor,
Continuum Literary Studies

Stephen Burn praises The Novel: An Alternative History in The New York Times Book Review

In an essay for the series “Why Criticism Matters,” Stephen Burn heralded Steven Moore’s The Novel: An Alternative History as a potential starting point for literary criticism in the age of digital media.  Burn argues that the Amazon.com review has ended the time of the critic as a 'cultural arbiter,' passing down informed opinions to a population of lay readers.  In a day when the common reader has his own voice, the critic should work more to illuminate and elucidate a work than to offer a judgment.  An essential part of this task is situating a novel within literary history, as part of an ongoing dialogue with its predecessors.  Burn offered The Novel: An Alternative History as a paradigm for this approach:

'Steven Moore’s recent encyclopedic study…dramatically amplifies our understanding of what the novel can and cannot do, and highlights living currents that sprang into existence 40 centuries ago and continue to flow into the contemporary novel.' -- The New York Times Book Review

We are thrilled to hear that one of our most recent publications has made such a timely intervention in the critical scene!  Check out the full article here.

Wordsworth and Bronte - New Reader's Guides

Hello!

I thought it was about time that I made my first post as the new Senior Editor on Continuum's Literary Studies list. Choosing a subject for my first post has proven to be quite a challenge: we're in the very fortunate position of having published some really great new books on the Literary Studies list over the last month or so, the only question is which one do I tell you about first??

After much thinking it over, I thought I'd start with the two newest books to publish in our very successful Reader's Guides series. Many of you might be familiar with these books, which take readers and students step by step through some of the great works of the literary and philosophical canon. The first of the new books takes a look at William Wordsworth's Poetry. Written by Daniel Robinson, Professor of English at Widener University, USA, the book not only takes a close look at the poetry itself (including The Prelude and Wordsworth's contributions to Lyrical Ballads), but also explores the political and cultural contexts in which Wordsworth wrote. Later chapters also cover Wordsworth's publishing history and his critical reception and  influence from his own time down to the present. You'll find a free preview by clicking through on the jacket above and you can find more information, including table of contents, here.

The second book, written by Zoe Brennan of the University of the West of England, takes a look at Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre remains, of course, one of the most genuinely popular novels ever published and to this day is frequently adapted for stage and screen. Our Reader's Guide provides a thorough survey of the book's adaptations and influence in addition to exploring its themes, form, language and use of imagery. As with other titles in the series, the book also provides a full guide to further reading available on Bronte's novel. The free preview is available above and, again, you can find further details on the book here.

Happy reading!

David,
Senior Editor,
Continuum Literary Studies