Edward Carpenter: Annotated Secondary Bibliography, II

Edward Carpenter: Annotated Secondary Bibliography, Î TONY BROWN University College of North Wales, Bangor Part I, with an introductory essay, appeared in 32:1 (1989), 35-67. This continuation of the bibliography of writing about Carpenter contains all significant references to Carpenter and his work in books and periodicals which have been located; short entries in general guides and surveys have been omitted. The more substantial and critically significant contemporary reviews of Carpenter's work are included; the Carpenter Collection at Sheffield contains an extensive collection of newspaper and periodical reviews. The following abbreviations have been used in referring to Carpenter 's books: TD: Towards Democracy (1883, with further additions in 1885, 1892,1902) EI: England's Ideal, and other papers on social subjects (1887) CCC: Civilisation: its Cause and Cure (1889) AP: From Adam's Peak to Elephanta: Sketches in Ceylon and India (1892) LCA: Love's Coming-of-Age (1896) AW: Angels' Wings (1898) AC: The Art of Creation (1904) PPP: Prisons, Police and Punishment (1905) DWW: Days with Walt Whitman (1906) SL: Sketches from Life in Town and Country, and Some Verses (1908) IS: The Intermediate Sex (1908) DLD: The Drama of Love and Death (1912) ITPF: Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk (1914) HN: The Healing of Nations (1915) AiDD: My Days and Dreams (1916) TIF: Towards Industrial Freedom (1917) PCC: Pagan and Christian Creeds (1920) I am grateful for the assistance and expertise of numerous members of staff at the Library of the University College of North Wales, Bangor, The British Library and the British Library (Newspaper Division), Manchester Public Library, and Sheffield City Library. I am also extremely grateful for the secretarial assistance of Mrs Vivienne Raybould and Mrs Joyce Williams. 170 Brown: Edward Carpenter: Annotated Secondary Bibliography, II Bibliography, II _________________________________1944_________________________________ Du Cann, C. G. L. "The Carpenter Centenary." Freethinker, 27 Aug 1944, 319, 323. Three of EC's books "still live": TD, IS and LCA; EC deserves praise for his courage in publishing the second and third of these, the "cruel stupidity " of Victorian attitudes to homosexuality being difficult to realise in 1944 when "wiser and saner attitudes" prevail. He is necessarily outmoded at the present time, Socialism having turned to "State-worship," while EC was essentially a philosophic anarchist. The fear and anxieties EC associated with capitalist society, however, are no less, though EC did not think deeply enough on the pressures affecting the wage-slave. Though not unreadable, his "level seriousness" does tend to boredom. However, he was a memorable man. McCarthy, Desmond. "Edward Carpenter: Minor Prophet." Listener, 7 Sept 1944, 270-71. [Centenary tribute.] EC was a minor prophet of the nineteenth century, an embodiment of the revolt of Victorian idealism against Victorian conventionalities and commercialism. He was more representative of the economic side of this revolt than Ruskin, who continued to believe in "degree," while EC argued for equality and the abolition of everything which would hamper the relation of man with man. TD never approaches Leaves of Grass as poetry; it is Whitman "feminized" and transposed into a minor key. But DWW is the best exposition which exists of Whitman as prophet and poet. EC was not a poet or writer of great mark but, especially in LCA and CCC, he could touch people directly and profoundly; his sentimentality, his uncritical hopefulness contributed to this. His vision was held sincerely and genuinely and this attracted people into warm friendship. [McCarthy remembers EC's "extraordinary serenity" on the two occasions he met EC] He did not separate the variations of affection discussed in LCA and IS from tenderness and love, and this is the value of these books. EC detested those habits and customs which inhibited people; artists interested him in that they were not afraid of being themselves and these issues are developed in AW. "Poet of Democracy." T.L.S., 2 Sept 1944, 426. [Centenary tribute.] TD lacks Whitman's "impulsion and intellectual vigour," but while EC's prose lacks that rigorous stylistic care that compels attention, when he turned from argument to express his ideals directly and enthusiastically "he reached a rare nobility of word and thought." He is not easy to place as a writer, nor...