Biography

Scott of Amwell, Dr. Johnson's Quaker Critic by David Perman

John Scott ("Scott of Amwell" 1731-1783) was an eighteenth century oddity --- a devout Quaker who built one of the finest shell grottoes of the age; a rich man who championed Poor Law Reform; a political progressive who wrote very conservative pastoral verse; a patron of the young William Blake; and a friend of Dr. Johnson who nonetheless strenuously attacked the Doctor's political and literary views.

Sam Johnson said he "loved Mr. Scott". Despite his dislike of Quakers and finding Scott's poems the sort of thing that anyone could write, Dr. Johnson agreed to write a life of Scott. But he died before he could begin work. It's fascinating to speculate what Johnson would have made of his eccentric friend.

This new biography of Scott draws upon a wealth of unpublished letters and other archives. It reveals a number of Scott's lost poems and it is illustrated with prints (including those by William Blake) and colour photographs of Scott's Grotto -- now described by English Heritage as "one of the finest grottoes in England". In his Foreword, Professor Paul Langford FBA (Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford) writes:

"David Perman's is not the first biography. But none before it has placed this rather quirky, quixotic Quaker so securely in the social and intellectual context of his time. Nor has any predecessor exploited fully the richness of the local archives and mastered the complexities of Scott's network of connections. The result is an authoritative study that brings out some unusual but revealing ambiguities and aspirations of an eighteenth century life."

Scott of Amwell, Dr. Johnson's Quaker Critic is published in both casebound and paperback editions, both illustrated. The casebound edition has critical notes, appendices (including Scott's uncollected poems), a full bibliography and index.

ISBN 1 873468 717 -- Casebound, illustrated, 368pp. £28.00

ISBN 1 873468 725 -- Paperback, illustrated, 304pp. £9.95.

 

 

[John Scott seated outside his grotto at Amwell]

 

 

The Crocus King: E.A. Bowles of Myddelton House by Bryan Hewitt.

E.A. Bowles -- "Gussie" to his friends -- was one of the 20th century's great gardeners. His Handbook of Crocus and Colchicum and the My Garden trilogy are still read by gardeners around the world. But he was also a talented artist, a truly warm-hearted man and a pillar of his local community in Enfield. In The Crocus King: E.A. Bowles of Myddelton House, Bryan Hewitt tells the story of the whole man. with There is an affectionate Preface by Gussie's great nephew, Brigadier AndrewParker Bowles.

[Right: Gussie's 1928 painting of "anemones miniatures"]

ISBN 1 873468 474 -- Paperback, illustrated, 104pp. £6.95

 

No Accounting for Paradise by William Oxley.

This enchanting book begins with a magical event, a chance encounter between a frightened child and a startled hare. "A world of perfect life reflected in that hare's eyes ... the look of unspoken fear in man or beast which begins in terror, ends in apology, and reveals the instinctive knowledge of Paradise in every living thing." It took years for Oxley to rediscover Paradise -- but discover it he did, in a literary life quite out of the ordinary. "A life lived against the materialist grain of our time" wrote poet Robert Greacen in the Irish Independent.

ISBN 1 873468 652 -- Casebound, illustrated, 232pp. £12.95

 

 

Fiction

Mrs. Valley's War is a collection of utterly unique stories -- amusing, sad, rather riqué, surrealist, historical. It is the first translation in English of the "Shelter Stories" of Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar, written in London after the VI flying bomb (or "doodle bug") raids on South London. Feyyaz was then a news translator in the BBC Turkish Section, of which he was later its head. He sent the stories to a news magazine in Istanbul and in 1963 they were awarded the Turkish Language Academy Prize. The critic Bedri Rahman has written “I got hold of some pictures of Henry Moore (the Shelter Sketchbooks) and weighed them against these stories (Mrs Valley’s War) and the stories weighed heavier!”. The translation by Ruth Christie and Selçuk Berilgen has been assisted by a grant from the TEDA Project of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

ISBN 978-1-904851-13-4 -- Paperback, 100 pages, £9.99