Paupers' Press

In two important and previously unpublished essays from the 1970s, Wilson, in the first, responds to an article on boredom published in a US newspaper in 1974 and, in the second, lays the foundations for a new descriptive psychology. Vaughan Rapatahana, in his perceptive Introduction concludes:

"Most significantly, Wilson remains ever the optimist-the articles here are suffused in positiveness and both are stimulating-they make sure you cogitate and they force you to ponder further."

Colin Wilson Studies #21 [ISSN: 0959-180-X]

ISBN: 9780956866325

50p., paper, £7.95

Now available:

The Outsider-Writer

Adam Daly

Volume 2:

Robert Walser, Edmond Jabès, Blaise Cendrars, Lionel Britton,

Stewart Home, Louis Ferdinand Céline.

Adam Daly writes: "The Outsider-Writer is an attempt to re-launch a marginalized branch of studies that has lain somewhat dormant since Colin Wilson wrote the 'Outsider-Cycle' over half a century ago." In the second volume of this monumental two-volume study, he presents lengthy assessments of some more 'heavyweights' and cameos of many other Outsider-Writers including: Tristan Corbière, Alfred Jarry, Comte de Lautréamont and Jean Lorrain.

Praise for Volume 1:

"I don't think I've ever read a work of critical interpretation which is so readable, so suffused with the author's personality and enthusiasm for his subjects and his theme, and yet at the same time deploying such an impressive range of literary and philosophic reference."

George Miller (author of Richard Jeffries: a bibliographical study)

"Adam Daly is a zealous, many-angled scholar who, with vigour, compassion and irony, presents a troupe of great literary artists....This enchanting, alternative canon is a must for university shelves, a Great Tradition for outcasts."

Paul Newman (author of A History of Terror)

Volume 2: 978-0-9568663-1-8

Due: 14 January, 2013. Paper, 345p., £16.95.

[Colin Wilson Studies # 20/2]

ISSN: 0959-180-X

Limited edition of 100 copies

Now available:

The Outsider-Writer

Adam Daly

Volume 1:

Colin Wilson, Albert Camus,‘Walking’ John Stewart,

John Cowper Powys, Fernando Pessoa, Carlo Emilio Gadda.

Adam Daly writes: “The Outsider-Writer is an attempt to re-launch a marginalized branch of studies that has lain somewhat dormant since Colin Wilson wrote the ‘Outsider-Cycle’ over half a century ago.” In the first volume of this monumental two-volume study, he presents lengthy assessments of some of the ‘heavyweights’ Outsider-Writers and cameos of several female Outsider-Writers including: Jean Rhys, Ann Quin, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Richardson, Lucy Swan, Jane Gaskell and Sylvia Plath.

His aim is to: “redress the balance, and in the process shake up the cosy conspiratorial consensus of the academic mainstream, the cultural establishment, and the corporate commercial market, in setting out an intransigently Radical Agenda for the emancipation of all writers who feel out of step and sympathy with fashionable literary genres, nostrums and tastes...”

Paul Newman (from his Foreword)

Volume 1: 978-0-9568663-0-1

Due: June 18, 2012. Paper. xxxiii, 361p., £16.95

[Colin Wilson Studies # 20/1]

ISSN: 0959-180-X

Limited edition of 100 copies

Volume 2 due January 14, 2013 (see above)

Now available:

The Sound Barrier:

a study of the ideas of Colin Wilson.

Sidney R. Campion

Originally written in 1963 as a sequel to The World of Colin Wilson, Sidney R. Campion's assessment of the early work of Colin Wilson--including much of the 'Outsider Cycle' and the accompanying novels--failed to find a publisher at the time, despite being amended by Wilson and enhanced by quotations from his journals. Eventually abandoned and forgotten for over 40 years, Wilson scholars will see the publication of 'The Sound Barrier 'as an invaluable addition to Colin Wilson studies concentrating, as it does, on that particularly fruitful and important stage in the author's career.

Sidney R. Campion (1891-1978), author, journalist, barrister, lecturer, schoolmaster, sculptor, was born in Coalville, Leicestershire. From 1940 until retirement in 1957, he was Head of the Press and Broadcast Division of the GPO. Publications included: Sunlight on the Foothills (1941), Towards the Mountains (1943) and The World of Colin Wilson (1962).

I.S.B.N. 9780946650811

I.S.S.N. 0959-180-X (Colin Wilson Studies #19)

£12.95. Paper. iv, 194p.

Limited edition of 100 numbered copies

Kindle edition

Published 2nd May 2011:

Stuart Holroyd: Years of Anger and Beyond

Antoni Diller

Stuart Holroyd [1933- ] came to prominence in 1957 when his first book Emergence From Chaos propelled him onto the 'Angry Young Men' bandwagon, alongside his friends Colin Wilson and Bill Hopkins. Flight and Pursuit followed in 1959 since when he has pursued a career as a language teacher, occasionally publishing books on a variety of subjects including the paranormal, Gnosticism and the philosophy of Krishnamurti. His memoir of the 1950s Contraries: a personal progression appeared in 1975.

The two main sections of Antoni Diller's essay were originally written as self-contained articles. The first section, "Becoming Angry", focuses on the 1950s, a crucial period in Holroyd's life. The second, "Expanding Horizons", relates the major events in Holroyd's life from 1960 to the present. The appendix, "Notes and Sources", explains the origins of the information contained in this study and provides biblio-graphical references for the published material that Diller has made use of. A bibliography of Holroyd's writings completes this exploration of an unjustly neglected thinker.

I.S.B.N. 9780946650149 (Paperback)

I.S.S.N. 0959-180-X (Colin Wilson Studies #18)

£7.95. Paper. 56p.

Now available (but just a few copies remaining):

The Colin Wilson Bibliography, 1956-2010

(Third revised and updated edition)

Colin Stanley

The long-awaited third edition of Colin Stanley's The Work of Colin Wilson: an annotated bibliography and guide, references details of: all 180 published books by the author; 591 of his published articles; over 160 Introductions, Prefaces, Forewords; 332 book reviews; over 350 books and articles about his work; 1500 reviews of his books; and lists his television and radio appearances.

Published to coincide with the author's 80th birthday, this comprehensive, annotated bibliography of primary and secondary sources has been fully revised and updated, incorporating an author chronology and an exhaustive index. Aimed at scholars, collectors and fans worldwide it also includes details of non-English translations of Wilson's work. An essential guide to an extraordinary writer who remains the most challenging and stimulating author of our time.

Colin Wilson Studies # 17

Limited numbered edition of just 50 copies

ISBN: 9780946650644

576p., Paper. £24.95

Now Available:

Fighting Fictions:

the novels of B. S. Johnson

2nd revised and updated edition

Nicolas Tredell

Ten years ago, it could seem that B. S. Johnson had fallen into obscurity. Indeed, when the first edition of Fighting Fictions appeared in 2000, no other book on Johnson had been published. However, since then, B. S. Johnson has enjoyed something of a revival. Four books about him have appeared, including the biography Like A Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe. With the first edition of Fighting Fictions now sold out, Nicolas Tredell has taken the opportunity to update the opening chapter and the anti-conclusion and to make a range of amendments in other parts of the book.

His study argues: "that the so-called 'experimental' aspects of Johnson's novels are as valuable as their realistic ones, sometimes more so, and that his work continues to pose major challenges for writers and readers in the twenty-first century. His novels are fighting fictions in two main senses: they contest conventional realism and, even more radically, they question whether fiction has any value at all."

Fighting Fictions provides a profile of Johnson's life; an account of developments in English fiction in the 1950s and the 1960s; a summary of Johnson's views on the novel; and an outline of the critical assumptions and approaches of the study as a whole. It discusses each of Johnson's novels in turn and offers, in the form of an anti-conclusion, suggestions about his achievement and about possible future directions for critical exploration of his work.

ISBN: 9780946650996

Paper. viii, 149p. £12.95

Published November 23, 2009:

Existential Criticism:

selected book reviews

Colin Wilson

In his groundbreaking essay, 'Existential Criticism', written in 1959, Colin Wilson argued that:

"No art can be judged by purely aesthetic standards, although a painting or a piece of music may appear to give a purely aesthetic pleasure. Aesthetic enjoyment is an intensification of the vital response, and this response forms the basis of all value judgements. The existentialist contends that all values are connected with the problems of human existence, the stature of man, the purpose of life. These values are inherent in all works of art, in addition to their aesthetic values, and are closely connected with them."

This statement provides a clear insight into his motives when selecting, analysing, assessing and reviewing literature -- a position he has maintained consistently for over fifty years. Apart from his classic study The Craft of the Novel (London: Victor Gollancz, 1975) some of the best examples of Colin Wilson's work in this field are contained in the hundreds of book reviews which have lain forgotten for many years among the pages of such journals as Books & Bookmen, The Literary Review, The London Magazine, John O'London's, The Spectator, The Aylesford Review and others.

This volume, selected and edited by Colin Stanley, contains a selection of reviews which provide a refreshingly different slant on the life and works of Kingsley Amis, Emily Brontë, E.M. Forster, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Edgar Allan Poe, George Bernard Shaw, Alexander Trocchi, Oscar Wilde, Henry Williamson and many others.

Colin Wilson Studies # 16 [ISSN: 0959-180-X]

ISBN: 9780946650989. Paper. iv, 283p. £14.95

Now available:

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach:

the transmutation of a 'secret'

Bernie C. Byrnes

In 2002 The Work Of Ian McEwan: A Psychodynamic Approach was published by Paupers' Press. In it Bernie C. Byrnes traced the 'metaplot' of Ian McEwan's fiction and offered psychodynamic interpretations of his published work, culminating in the Booker prize winning Amsterdam (1998). Subsequently McEwan published two more books: Atonement (2001) and Saturday (2005). Bernie C. Byrnes responded with a supplement to that main work which deals with those later novels in detail. This volume, assesses McEwan's most recent novella.

On Chesil Beach is a novella about a disastrous wedding night. At one level McEwan wants the reader to believe that the inexperience of the protagonists, in the setting of the prevalent social customs and taboos of the early 1960s, is enough to account for this fiasco. It is easy to overlook the fact that above all On Chesil Beach is a novel about secrecy. Each of the protagonists comes from a family burdened with a secret. When the consequences of these secrets collide on the wedding night, a common and temporary difficulty, encountered by many virgins, becomes an agonizing and insoluble problem.

While it is not necessary to appreciate the whole complexity of this book, the reader who takes the story at its face value will miss the depth of its psychological insight and its relevance to the present day, and finally will be unable to appreciate the vague but fascinating connection between the secrets in On Chesil Beach and those in the author's family of origin.

I.S.B.N. 9780946650972 (Paperback)

52 p, £6.95.

Published March 2, 2009:

Colin Wilson's Outsider Cycle:

a guide for students

Colin Stanley

Colin Wilson's Outsider Cycle is the collective label applied to the seven philosophy books, outlining his New Existentialism, which were published between the years 1956 and 1966:

* The Outsider (1956)

* Religion and the Rebel (1957)

* The Age of Defeat (aka The Stature of Man) (1959)

* The Strength to Dream: literature and the imagination (1962)

* Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963)

* Beyond the Outsider: the philosophy of the future (1965)

* Introduction to the New Existentialism (aka The New Existentialism) (1966)

Any connection between the books went unnoticed by the (mostly) hostile critics of the day until Wilson announced in his Preface to book 6 that: "These books are closely linked-so closely that it is impossible for any one of them to be understood without the others" (Beyond the Outsider, p.11). Colin Stanley examines these titles closely, provides an essay on each, assesses the critical appraisal and appends full bibliographical details (extracted from his Colin Wilson, the first fifty years: an existential bibliography, 1956-2005) but admits that, as the books themselves are eminently readable, attempts at elucidation can often have the opposite result. But for those in need of further clarification, Wilson himself has written an Afterword, assessing the Outsider Cycle, nearly 45 years on.

I.S.S.N. 0959-180-X (Colin Wilson Studies #15)

I.S.B.N. 9780946650965 (Paperback)

iv, 158p, £7.95

Kindle edition

Now available:

McEwan's Only Childhood:

Development of a Metaplot

Bernie C. Byrnes

In 2002 Paupers' Press published The Work Of Ian McEwan: A Psychodynamic Approach. In it Bernie C. Byrnes traced the 'metaplot' of Ian McEwan's fiction and offered psychodynamic interpretations of his published work, culminating in the Booker prize-winning Amsterdam (1998). Subsequently McEwan published two more books: Atonement (2001) and Saturday (2005), and she responded by writing an addendum on these works (also published by Paupers' Press). At that time she claimed that as a 'diminishing amount' of new unconscious material was being included in his writing, it could be argued that her thesis on his work had reached its conclusion. However, just as it seemed that he had come to the end of the gifts from his unconscious, McEwan discovered he had an estranged brother. The revelation of David Sharp's existence has made it possible for her to review her previous hypotheses about the metaplot. The earlier explanations still hold good, based as they are on information from a careful study of his work, but the appearance of David adds a new dimension to his 'unfolding story'. Bernie C. Byrnes argues here that David Sharp's secret existence has had a profound influence on McEwan's creativity from the beginning and traces its effect through his fiction, up to and including his most recent publication On Chesil Beach (2007). A further addendum dealing with that novel is now available.

ISBN: 9780946650941

Paper. 63p. £6.95.

Other titles by Bernie C. Byrnes from Paupers' Press:

Ian McEwan's Atonement & Saturday. £9.95

Sex and Sexuality in Ian McEwan's work. 2nd edition. £7.95

The Work of Ian McEwan: a psychodynamic approach. £16.95

Woody Allen's Trilogy of Terror: a study of 'Interiors,' 'September' and 'Another Woman'. £7.95

Published September 15th 2008:

Katherine Mansfield and Modernist Aesthetics

Anthony Hendon

Though she shared many of the sensibilities of her eminent 'Bloomsbury Group' contemporaries such as Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, the New Zealand short story writer Katherine Mansfield is much less widely discussed as a contributor to 1920s Modernism. By close analysis of stories from all five of her collections, Anthony Hendon considers Katherine Mansfield's place among the writers who brought new aesthetics to twentieth-century fiction.

ISBN: 9780946650958

Paper. 54p. £6.95

Anthony Hendon is a journalist with an interest in Modernism, contemporary writing and world literature. He studied English and film & television studies at Brunel University, West London, where he developed his interest in Katherine Mansfield. Having worked for the BBC in London and in local news, he is now a regional newspaper subeditor and a drama, travel and food reviewer. He lives in Wallsend, Tyne & Wear.

Now available:

E. H. Visiak: Writer and Mystic

by Anthony Harrison-Barbet

with an Introduction by Colin Wilson.

Novelist, poet, essayist, critic, biographer, pacifist, and mystic, E. H. Visiak (1878-1972) is remembered principally for his "story of mystery and ecstasy and strange horror" Medusa (1929), highly rated today by connoisseurs of the genre; his contribution to Milton scholarship-he was awarded a Civil List pension for his authoritative editing of the Nonesuch Compendious Milton (1938); and his superb autobiography Life's Morning Hour (1968), which contains a fascinating description of his life-changing visionary experience-Colin Wilson considers this book to be "one of the finest accounts of childhood in English Literature". Never a member of any literary 'establishment' he spent his long life in relative seclusion in London and later in Hove, Sussex, though he was a frequent correspondent of such contemporaries as John Masefield, John Cowper Powys, John Gawsworth, and David Lindsay, author of A Voyage to Arcturus (whom he befriended and supported in his literary endeavours).

E. H. Visiak: Writer and Mystic contains substantial selections from his best poetry and prose, and includes many previously unpublished essays-on literature, Victorian life, and the sea. Helpful analyses of his three novels are also provided. The anthology is preceded by a critical study of Visiak's 'world-view' and his often controversial views on literature. For this Anthony Harrison-Barbet has been able to draw additionally on Visiak's notes for a projected work on religion and philosophy. The critical essay together with the anthology constitutes an excellent introduction to a somewhat neglected writer, the merits of whose work can now be fully appreciated by a wider readership.

ISBN: 9780946650927

xiv, 352p. £17.95.

Now re-issued in a new Uniform Edition:

4 of Colin Wilson's early Paupers' booklets:

Mozart's Journey to Prague

a playscript

Mozart and his wife Constanze left Vienna for Prague on October 1, 1787, a distance of some 330 kilometres--a three day journey. Halfway through the second day, the coach had arrived at a small village, at the top of the Moravian mountain range, and they decided to stop for lunch at a little inn. While Constanze rested, Mozart wandered off up the avenue of poplars that led to the grounds of the castle of Count Joseph von Schinzburg. Here, as he relaxed in a trellised arbour near a fountain, he idly plucked an orange from a small orange tree, and absent-mindedly cut it in half-at which point he was discovered by Velten, the head gardener...

Within four years of these events, Mozart was dead.

Many years later, after the dawn of the new century, the Countess Sophie von Schinzburg, still a slim and attractive woman in her mid- sixties, told the story of Mozart's visit at the home of Prince and Princess Lichnowsky, in Vienna, to an audience of Mozart's admirers.

Based on a novella of the same name, by the nineteenth century poet Eduard Mörike, the play was written in 1991 at the request of the Medici String Quartet which was celebrating its 20th anniversary. Starring Dorothy Tutin, Richard McCabe and featuring the Medici String Quartet, it successfully toured the U.K. later that year.

ISBN 9780946650439

50p., Paper, £8.95.

***

The Musician as 'Outsider'

In a wide-ranging essay, Wilson extends his examination of the dilemma that destroyed so many of the great Romantic 'Outsider' artists to composers from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, turning the spotlight in particular on Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven whom he describes as: "...one of the first of the great Outsider-Artists-perhaps the greatest of them all." Calling upon Nietzsche and his own philosophy of optimism, Wilson suggests a way out of the Romantic cul-de-sac of pessimism and self-pity, anticipating a time when: "...the 'age of Outsiders' will draw to a close, and the human race will embark on a new phase of its history."

ISBN: 9780946650088

39p., Paper, £6.95

Kindle edition

***

Music, Nature and the Romantic Outsider

In a follow-up essay to 'The Musician as 'Outsider'', Wilson considers the way in which the romantic poets and musicians changed man's outlook on nature. Starting in 1793 with Wackenroder and Tieck's tour of Southern Germany, he takes us through the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries-to the end of romanticism and the onset of modernism-assessing the contribution of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Thomas Mann, Anton Bruckner, Jean Sibelius, Frederick Delius and many others along the way. Applying his knowledge of split-brain psychology, Wilson is able to suggest that the descent into pessimism and self-pity, that destroyed so many of the great Romantic 'Outsider' artists, was a problem of weakness which can be avoided through self-discipline.

ISBN: 9780946650156

47p., Paper, £6.95.

Kindle edition

***

The Decline and Fall of Leftism

In a rare essay on political science, Wilson argues that most talk of social revolution is not a logical response to a perception of social injustice, but a personal sense of injury masquerading as social criticism.In part one, he outlines his own disenchantment with Socialism and, in parts two and three, studies the life and work of two socialist writers: Jack London and B. Traven. 'Intellectually, I reject Socialism,' Wilson concludes, 'temperamentally, it can still tug at my sympathies. So I feel this essay...is an attempt to understand Socialism as much as to puncture its fallacies.'

ISBN: 9780946650125

51p., Paper, £6.95.

Kindle edition

Now available:

A reissue of Colin Wilson's

Strindberg

[a play in two scenes]

Colin Wilson's first published play was written in 1965 but remained in manuscript until 1970. On September 15, 1971 it was performed as 'Pictures in a Bath of Acid' at the Leeds Playhouse, starring Alfred Burke as Strindberg. It played as 'Strindberg: A Psychological Portrait' in New York three years later and again in 1975 as 'Strindberg: A Fool's Decision'. In that same year a production was staged by the Mercury Theatre Company in London under the combined title of 'Strindberg or Pictures in a Bath of Acid'.

As fascinating to read as to see in production, the play succeeds in presenting a psychological portrait of one the most original and intriguing figures of modern literature. Skilfully using techniques derived from Strindberg's own plays, Wilson has created a uniquely challenging role for any actor. It is hoped that this reprint will inspire a new generation of actors and directors to once again take up that challenge.

Contains a new intoduction by the author.

ISBN: 9780946650910

iii, 95p., Paper, £9.95.

Now available:

Ian McEwan's Atonement & Saturday

by Bernie C. Byrnes

In 2002 The Work Of Ian McEwan: A Psychodynamic Approach was published by Paupers' Press. In it Bernie C. Byrnes traced the 'metaplot' of Ian McEwan's fiction and offered psychodynamic interpretations of his published work, culminating in the Booker prize winning Amsterdam (1998). Since then McEwan has published two more books: Atonement (2001) and Saturday (2005). This booklet is intended as a supplement to that main work and deals with these later novels in detail.

With the publication of Atonement, several critics, and many readers, hailed him as the 'greatest living English writer'. It is never possible to be sure that a contemporary writer will be recognised by future generations. One of the prerequisites for this is that his voice should speak for his own time and place in history and as such Saturday places McEwan firmly at the forefront of the search for new values, independent of the traditional wisdom received from the past.

Nevertheless, McEwan seems to have come to the end of the spontaneous gifts from his unconscious. For someone so committed to the imagination as a source of fiction, he devotes increasingly large parts of his novels to historical and scientific information, which he studies in depth, and relies increasingly on conscious structuring of characters and plots synthesised from fragments of reality. This need not mean that creativity is at an end. However, with diminishing amounts of new unconscious material being included in his writing, Byrnes' assessment of his work would appear to have reached its conclusion.

0-946650-90-X

Kindle edition

Available from Paufict:

The long-awaited sequel to First Novel:

Novel 2

another novel by

Colin Stanley

The hunt for a missing schoolgirl in the normally sleepy town of Tapshed, Devon, provides some startling news for Christopher Purbright, a writer, escaping from Nottingham, returning to his home town to work on a new novel. Events send him scurrying deeper into the West Country landscape -- to Bovey Tracey, Lustleigh, and onto Dartmoor itself, until he realises that he can't keep running away and is forced to face up to his past. It is then that he meets the mysterious man who has bought his family home in Tapshed...
As with the acclaimed First Novel, Novel 2, superficially an unconventional thriller, is, in fact, a plea to heighten our consciousness in order to live vital and appreciative lives.

"Judged on its own, this is an interesting and entertaining read. It's funny too...baffling and erotic. But it is when you read it in conjunction with the author's 'First Novel' that all the pieces of the mosaic come together in a very clever way because the two novels run concurrently, dealing with the same sequence of events from different viewpoints then bringing them together.Lovers of conventional storylines will be disappointed for this is very much an experimental allegory accentuating the power of sex, the importance of mystical experience and how the two can combine to enrich our perceptions. Bring on 'Novel 3'!" Anonymous reviewer, Amazon.co.uk.

"Another brilliant metaphor, affording us, once again, more than a glimpse of our potential as human beings..."
Mark Lethbridge-Wright, Western Morning Express and Echo.

"A light, swift accessible read with a satisfying circularity...deft verbal painting, brooding evocations of the Exe estuary, thrillerish pursuits, dashes of nostalgia and regret, a needlepoint of existential despair...a new type of creation...vanishing into a wilderness of mirrors..."
Paul Newman, Abraxas [Reviewing First Novel].

0-946650-88-8

July 2005. 173p. £7.95.

Buy First Novel and Novel 2 for just £12. E-mail us for details.

Kindle edition

Paufict presents:

Laura Del Rivo's novel

Speedy and Queen Kong

(with an Afterword by Colin Wilson)

"Speedy was poor but dishonest. He could not read or write well, but he could count…Half his mind was robot, clickety-click, cool as an ice-cube, cool to the point of total refrigerated insensibility…The other part was sensationalist. He exploded braincells that irradiated the loft under his skull with electric blue lightwaves."

"Queen Kong had dyed orange hair, erect in a crest. She went in for tight T-shirts. Most T-shirts were tight on Queen Kong; she was a weighty lady who led with the chest…She dyed her hair orange to blaze out her last passion; for she was getting on in weight and years; for Speedy."

Just two of the larger-than-life characters from this extraordinary novel by Laura Del Rivo, author of 'The Furnished Room' (filmed by Michael Winner as 'West 11') and 'Daffodil on the Pavement.'

"A virtuoso performance…a poetic phantasmagoria…Del Rivo shows her mastery of a stabby aphoristic style, impaling her characters on the tips of vicious metaphors…The narrative crackles with jokes and apt observations…(one is reminded of Joe Orton who savours and celebrates the spiritual impoverishment of his characters)." - Paul Newman, Editor of Abraxas and author of 'Murder as an Antidote for Boredom: the novels of Laura Del Rivo, Colin Wilson and Bill Hopkins.'

"She writes brilliantly…this book achieves its effects by means of satirical caricature, rather like Nathanael West's masterpiece Miss Lonelyhearts…" - Colin Wilson (from his Afterword).

Limited edition of 200 numbered copies

0-946650-85-3

111pp. £7.95

Plus from Paupers' Press:

Writing on the Body:

sex, gender and identity in the fiction of Jeanette Winterson and Angela Carter.

by Richard Hobbs

Richard Hobbs's research interests are primarily in the field of identity, particularly gender identity in 20th Century culture, including consideration of sexuality, gender performance and the historicity of roles. He relates perceived roles to literary representations and to 'real life', taking into account the blurred boundaries of reality, fiction and fantasy. Hobbs observes gender difference historically as a fluctuating, power-based site and gauges its influence on art and society leading into the 21st Century. Writing on the Body…considers the selected fiction of Jeanette Winterson and Angela Carter with those themes in mind and exposes the significance of self in both.
He writes: "My first reading of Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body illustrated a tangible shift in one character's gender identity from male to female. Making brief notes as I read, it became clear from the first few pages that Winterson intended her narrator's gender to remain ambiguous and I diligently referred to 'the narrator' instead of generics, such as 'him' or 'her.'
Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve offers an interesting comparison with Winterson's text. Gender identity is explored through Evelyn, the sexually dominant male, who is captured by a matriarchal gang of outlaws and surgically altered to become Eve. In addition to a biological sex change, the female project at 'Beulah' is to culturally alter Evelyn into a 'woman'."

0-946650-86-1

55pp. £7.95

Kindle edition

Sex and Sexuality in

Ian McEwan's work.

by Bernie C. Byrnes

A revised editon of an earlier popular essay on the novelist Ian McEwan by C. Byrnes, author of 'The Work of Ian McEwan: a psychodynamic approach'.

Throughout his career Ian McEwan has often been mis-understood and plagued by controversy. The BBC first commissioned a play by him and then in March 1979, four days before he was due to record it, the management called a halt. McEwan was told the play was 'untransmittable' and the BBC put out a press notice that announced the ban and referred to 'grotesque and bizarre sexual elements in the play' In fact, Solid Geometry is the least bizarrely sexual of McEwan's early work and he was hugely disappointed that he was not given a fair trial. McEwan was labelled as 'dirty' and it is this reputation that many people still recall when his name is mentioned.
In this essay Bernie C. Byrnes (author of The Work of Ian McEwan: a psychodynamic approach) discusses McEwan's use of sex and sexuality to portray various aspects of relationship, inter-personal communication, closeness and distance, status and the acting out of erotic fantasy. There is in McEwan's work, a gradual development in his characters from infantile to mature sexual functioning, through the recognised stages of psycho-sexual development. Far from being 'dirty' or gratuitous, McEwan's treatment of sexuality is a powerful and vital comment on society. McEwan holds a mirror up for us to view ourselves and we should be careful not to condemn him too vehemently because we don't like what we see.

0-946650-87-X

46pp. £7.95

Kindle edition

Try something different:

Paufict in association with the makers of

Nasty Nibbles present:

Sense-less:

complete nonsense verse

by Colin Stanley

illustrated by Maggie Guillon and Yvonne Harrison

Ever wondered why Batman retired?

Ever considered philosophy as an alternative source of entertainment?

Are you curious about the formation of the asteroids

or the mating habits of Frudes?

Do you want to know why the Chronically A-Symmetric Grouse seldom invites his friends to tea?

If you have answered yes to some, all or none of these questions you will need to relax, put your feet in a bucket of cream and read this book.

"Nothing to grouse about" - Colonel Bagshot Humming-Brooke.

"Mortifyingly funny" - the late H. Lampton Frizbee-Bell

0-946650-84-5

£5.95. 68pp (inc 30 b&w cartoon illustrations)

The Forms of Things Unknown:

essays on Teaching and Learning Creative Writing

***

Stephen Wade

Creative writing is now well established as a 'subject' and modules in Higher Education, Access courses, distance learning and adult education are now completely familiar. There is an assumption that it is still permissable for the aims of these modules to remain vague. Yet, if you institutionalise such courses, you have to come up with assessment criteria. Or should it remain an exception?

Stephen Wade's agenda is simple: courses should involve both the flexible thinking of humanities conceptual course-construction and the room for personal expression. He argues that there has to be a course/module model that embraces and allows for that complexity. The essays and case studies he presents are intended to stimulate some machinery for change in institutions: a change towards making creativity less formidable and sacerdotal.

0-946650-83-7

Paper. iv, 66pp. £9.95

David Bowie: a sense of art

by David Power

David Bowie once commented that Andy Warhol is one of the most important artists of the second half of the twentieth century because he helped to break down the barriers between high and low art. Whatever we may think of this judgement, we can see why Bowie himself would give such importance to an artist who did this. Bowie is first and foremost a rock star. However, there has always been a sense in which just being a rock star would not be enough for him. This has led him to mix into his music an unprecedented amount of influences from other art forms thereby adding weight to the rock medium itself. He has also, as an actor and painter, produced work of quality in art forms other than the rock medium. Thus, in his own way he has done something similar to Warhol in that he has, if not broken down the barriers between high and low art, then he has certainly blurred them.

0-946650-80-2

Paper. 55pp. £7.95.

Tom Greenwell's literary comedy in two acts:

Chepstow Road

(Colin Wilson Study # 12)

Tom Greenwell's literary comedy is set in the house that he famously shared with Colin Wilson, Bill Hopkins and John Braine between 1956 and 1959 when he worked as a gossip columinst for The Evening Standard. Wilson and Hopkins, at the cutting edge of English literature at the time, drift in and out of the action as does the Rachmanesque landlord who owns the building and supervises the brothel in the basement. Greenwell's room, as explained by Stuart Holroyd in his 'Afterword', "was a meeting place for fellow writers and journalists, people in publishing or television, and a host of seekers, malcontents and misfits". Cue Percy, the author, married to Annabel, the actress who recently turned down a part in Look Back In Anger. And Annabel's millionaire uncle Walter, intending, at an advanced age, to marry Mrs Withernsea thereby disinheriting his niece. How can this disaster be avoided? Well, there's Dolly who works in the basement...

Tom Greenwell's amusing and informative playscript works both as an entertainment and as a slice of literary history. A 'must read' for anyone interested in this fascinating period when English literature finally shook itself free from the constraints of World War Two.

Contains an Introduction by Colin Wilson and an Afterword by Stuart Holroyd.

limited edition of 300 numbered copies.

Paper; xii,120pp. £9.95.

ISBN 0-946650-78-0/ ISSN 0959-180X

The Work of Ian McEwan:

A psychodynamic approach.

Bernie C. Byrnes

This book traces the 'metaplot' of Ian McEwan's progress, through his professional writing, from First Love, Last Rights to Amsterdam. The psychodynamic interpretations offered isolate the separate threads in the fabric of his fiction and demonstrate the maturation and increasing sophistication of his work.

0-946650-75-6

Paper. 318pp. £16.95

Banned by W. H. Smith!!

Now in its second impression

From Paufict:

First Novel

a novel by

Colin Stanley

"Do what you will, this life's a fiction
And is made up of Contradiction"

***

These lines from William Blake do little to prepare the reader for the extraordinary events that unfold in this unconventional thriller where fact and fiction merge unnervingly.
The action, switching between Tapshed, a small town in Devon, and London, focuses upon the police hunt for a missing schoolgirl.
The hero, a minor but published poet, in the process of writing his first novel, unwittingly drawn into a dark underworld of pornography and paedophilia, becomes a suspect.
But nothing is as it seems in this metaphysical thriller and the chance discovery of a missing chapter from the novel confirms Blake's view of the state of things.

***

"A splendid metaphor...a rare and intelligent novel by a rare and intelligent novelist..."
Mark Lethbridge-Wright, Sunday Chronicle

0-946650-71-3
Paper.212pp. £6.95.

All copies signed by the author.

Get your copy now while stocks last!!

Buy First Novel and Novel 2 for just £12. E-mail us for details.

Now available as a Kindle book

Important: if ordering direct from us, please make cheques payable to: Colin Stanley.

Please note: it is now possible to pay for our books through PayPal using most credit cards. Simply e-mail us with a list of the books you require.

OR: for payment online, by secure server, order through:

The Alternative Bookshop

Complete stocklist 2013:

BLYTHE, Daniel: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly : moral ambiguity in the tales of the Brothers Grimm.
£5.50. Paper. 30p. 0-946650-45-4.

BRINER, Patricia and WISE, Peter: Marking Time: conversations across a kitchen table.
£5.95. Paper. 45p. 0-946650-39-X.

BRUCE, Sylvia: 'Dickens's Portrayal of Women' and other essays.
£4.95. Paper. 45p. 0-946650-13-6.

BRUCE, Sylvia: Essays on Isak Dinesen and A.E.Housman (with a tribute to Sylvia Bruce by Brocard Sewell).
£7.95. Paper. 62p. 0-946650-55-1.

BYRNES, Bernie C: Ian McEwan's Atonement and Saturday. Kindle edition

BYRNES, Bernie C. : Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach: the transmutation of a 'secret'. £6.95. Paper. 52p. 0-946650-97-7

BYRNES, Bernie C: McEwan's Only Childhood. £6.95. Paper. 63p. 0-946650-94-2

BYRNES, Bernie C: Sex and Sexuality in Ian McEwan's Work. 2nd. edition. £7.95. Paper. 46p. 0-946650-87-X. Kindle edition

BYRNES, Bernie C.: The work of Ian McEwan: a psychodynamic approach. £16.95. Paper. 318p. 0-946650-75-6.

BYRNES, Christina: Woody Allen's Trilogy of Terror: a study of 'Interiors', 'September' and 'Another Woman'.
£7.95. Paper. 34p. 0-946650-63-2.

CAMPION, Sidney: The Sound Barrier: a study of the ideas of Colin Wilson. £12.95. Paper. 194p. 0-946650-81-0. [Colin Wilson Studies #19] Kindle edition

DALGLEISH, Tim: The Guerilla Philosopher: Colin Wilson and Existentialism [Colin Wilson Studies #5].
£5.95. Paper. 40p. 0-946650-47-0 Paper. 0-946650-48-9 Hardback.*

DALY, Adam: The Outsider Writer, Volumes 1 & 2. £16.95 each. Paper., 394p., 345p. 9780956866301 / 9780956866318 [Colin Wilson Studies 20/1 & 20/2]

DEL RIVO, Laura: Speedy and Queen Kong. £7.95. Paper. 112p. 0-946650-85-3.

DILLER, Antoni: Stuart Holroyd: Years of Anger and Beyond [Colin Wilson Studies # 18]. £7.95. Paper. 56p. 9780946650149.

DOSSOR, Howard: The Philosophy of Colin Wilson : Three perspectives [Colin Wilson Studies #9].
£6.95. Paper. 42p. 0-946650-58-6.

GILES, Samantha: Witchcraft and Mysogyny. £8.95. Paper. 50p. 0-946650-62-4.

GREENWELL, Tom: Chepstow Road: a literary comedy in two acts [Colin Wilson Studies #12]. £9.95. Paper. 132p. 0-946650-78-0.(Introduction by Colin Wilson and an Afterword by Stuart Holroyd).

HARRISON-BARBET, Anthony: E. H. Visiak: Writer and Mystic: a critical study with extracts from his poetry and prose. £17.95. Paper. xiv, 352p. 9780946650927.

HENDON, Anthony: Katherine Mansfield and Modernist Aesthetics. £6.95. Paper. 53p. 0-946650-95-0.

HOBBS, Richard: Writing on the Body: sex, gender and identity in the fiction of Jeanette Winterson and Angela Carter. £7.95. Paper. 55p. 0-946650-86-1. Kindle edition

LACHMAN, Gary: Two essays on Colin Wilson: World Rejection and Criminal Romantics & From Outsider to Post-Tragic Man [Colin Wilson Studies #6]. £7.95. Paper. 64p. 0-946650-52-7.

LAWS, Robert Anthony: Dance of the Hanging Men: the story of Francois Villon; killer, thief and poet.
£11.95. Paper. 107p. 0-946650-50-0.

LAWS, Robert Anthony: The Marquis de Sade: madman or martyr? £10.95. Paper. 92p. 0-946650-76-4.

MOORHOUSE, John: A Historical Glossary of British Marxism. £4.95. Paper. 48p. 0-946650-06-3.

MOORHOUSE, John & NEWMAN, Paul: Colin Wilson, two essays: 'The English Existentialist' and 'Spiders and Outsiders' (including an interview with the author).[Colin Wilson Studies #1]
£5.95/£16.95. Paper. 50p. 0-946650-11-X.

NEWMAN, Paul : Murder as an Antidote for Boredom : the novels of Laura Del Rivo, Colin Wilson and Bill Hopkins [Colin Wilson Studies #7]
£8.95. Paper. 74p. 0-946650-57-8.

POWER, David: David Bowie: a sense of art. £7.95. Paper. 55p. 0-946650-80-2.

POWER, David: David Lindsay's Vision (with an introduction by Colin Wilson)
£5.95/£16.95. Paper. 40p. 0-946650-30-6.

ROBERTS, Paul: Becoming Mr. Nobody: the philosophy and poetry of John Cowper Powys.
£6.95/£16.95. Paper. 54p. 0-946650-37-3.

ROBERTSON, Vaughan: Wilson as Mystic. [Colin Wilson Studies #11]. £8.95. Paper. 80p. 0-946650-74-8.

SEABROOK, Mike: Northward Ho!: a visit to Peter Maxwell Davies. 0-946650-66-7. Paper. 47p. £5.95. (Includes 2 black-and-white photographs).

SEWELL, Brocard: Three essays (including the original introduction to Colin Wilson's 'Voyage to a Beginning'). [The Aylesford Review Essays #1]. £4.95. Paper. 24p. 0-946650-07-1.

SHAND, John & LACHMAN, Gary: Colin Wilson as Philosopher & Faculty X, Consciousness and the Transcendence of Time. [Colin Wilson Studies #8]. £6.95. Paper. 35p. 0-946650-59-4.

SMALLDON, Jeffrey: Human Nature Stained: Colin Wilson and the existential study of modern murder. [Colin Wilson Studies #4]. £5.95/£16.95. Paper/Hardback. 38p. 0-946650-28-4 Paper. 0-946650-29-2 Hardback.*

STANLEY, Colin: The 'Aylesford Review', 1955-1968 : an index. £5.50. Paper. 89p. 0-946650-03-9.

STANLEY, Colin: The Colin Wilson Bibliography, 1956-2010. £24.95. Paper. 576p. 0-946650-64-0.

STANLEY, Colin: Colin Wilson's 'Outsider Cycle': a guide for students. £7.95. Paper. 158p. 0-946650-96-9. Kindle edition.

STANLEY, Colin: First Novel. £6.95. Paper. 212p. 0-946650-71-3. Kindle edition

STANLEY, Colin: 'The Nature of Freedom' and other essays.[Colin Wilson Studies #2].
£5.95/£16.95. Paper/Hardback. 33p. 0-946650-17-9 Paper. 0-946650-27-6 Hardback.*

STANLEY, Colin: Novel 2. £7.95. Paper. 173p. 0-946650-88-8. Kindle edition

STANLEY, Colin: Sense-less: complete nonsense verse. £5.95. Paper. 68p. 0-946650-84-5. (Illustrated by Maggie Guillon and Yvonne Harrison).

STANLEY, Colin: The Work of Colin Wilson: a bibliography and guide; supplement to 1995.
£15.95. Paper. 220p. 0-946650-69-1.

TREDELL, Nicolas: Fighting Fictions: the novels of B. S. Johnson. 2nd edition. £12.95. Paper. viii, 149p. 9780946650996.

TREDELL, Nicolas: Uncancelled Challenge: the work of Raymond Williams.
£8.95/£16.95. Paper/Hardback. 96p. 0-946650-16-0 Paper. 0-946650-46-2 Hardback.*

TROWELL, Michael: Colin Wilson, the positive approach: a response to a critic. [Colin Wilson Studies #3]
£5.95/£16.95 Paper/Hardback. 36p. 0-946650-25-X Paper. 0-946650-26-8 Hardback.*

vanVOGT, A.E.: A Report on the Violent Male (with an introductory note by Colin Wilson). £5.95. Paper. 36p. 0-946650-40-3.

VINCENT, Gregory K.: Proportional Representation: a debate on the pitfalls of our electoral system.
£5.95. Paper. 24p. 0-946650-54-3.

WADE, Stephen: The Forms of Things Unknown: essays on teaching and learning creative writing. £9.95. Paper. 66p. 0-946650-83-7.

WADE, Stephen: More on the Word-Hoard: the work of Seamus Heaney.
£11.95. Paper. 132p. 0-946650-49-7.

WILLIAMSON, Henry: 'Some Notes on 'The Flax of Dream'...' and other essays.
[The Aylesford Review Essays #2] £4.95. Paper. 32p. 0-946650-10-1.

WILSON, Colin: Autobiographical Reflections. £5.95. Paper. 50p. 0-946650-09-8.

WILSON, Colin: Decline and Fall of Leftism. £6.95 Paper. 51p. 0-946650-12-8. Kindle edition

WILSON, Colin: Essay on the 'New' Existentialism. £5.95. Paper. 18p. 0-946650-04-7. Kindle edition

WILSON, Colin: Existential Criticism: selected book reviews. £14.95. Paper. iv, 283p. 0-946650-98-5

WILSON, Colin: Introduction to James Drought (with a new Postscript by the author) £7.95. Paper. 3pp. 0-946650-67-5.

WILSON, Colin: Marriage and London. £7.95. Paper. 72p. 0-946650-32-2.

WILSON, Colin: Mozart's Journey to Prague: a playscript. £8.95 Paper. 50p. 0-946650-43-8.

WILSON, Colin: Music, Nature and the Romantic Outsider. £6.95. Paper. 47p. 0-946650-15-2. Kindle edition

WILSON, Colin: The Musician as 'Outsider'. £6.95. Paper. 39p. 0-946650-08-X. Kindle edition

WILSON, Colin & DOSSOR, Howard F.: Nikos Kazantzakis. £7.95. Paper. 34p. 0-946650-68-3.

WILSON, Colin: Sex, America and Other Insights. £7.95. Paper. 75p. 0-946650-34-9.

WILSON, Colin: Sex and the Intelligent Teenager. £10.95. Paper. 197p. 0-946650-60-8.

WILSON, Colin: Strindberg: a play in two scenes. £9.95. Paper. iii, 96p. 9780946650910

* All Paupers' hardbacks are issued in limited editions of 100 numbered copies.

All quoted prices are subject to alteration.

33% Trade discount.

Return to head of page.