As part of the Portsmouth 60 Plus Festival, I am at the Portsmouth Central Library on Wednesday 9 October presenting the above talk. 'Once Upon a Time' is very much an adult look at some of the stories I have grown up with and that established my love of reading and books. Long after the novels and romances of adult life have faded, the simple stories and tales we read as children live on in our hearts. This talk explores the stories behind just some of the books that bought me more innocent happiness than probably anything I have read since.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Once upon a time: a look inside the stories I have grown up with
The Rise and Fall of the Portsmouth to Arundel Navigation
Here are details of a new talk that was launched over the Heritage Open Days celebrations in Havant. The talk is 60 minutes and is fully illustrated with PowerePoint.
In the early 1800s ambitious plans to link the Thames in London to the sea at Portsmouth using a network of canals were begun. This is the story of how the planned Portsmouth to Arundel Navigation impacted on Portsmouth with the building of the Portsea Ship Canal and the Portscreek route, formerly the Cosham Canal. The presentation identifies just some of the people who invested in the project and explores reasons why and what, may have ultimately, led to its failure.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Saturday, October 15, 2022
Monday, October 4, 2021
I have recently received messages on this blogs contact form which I have not replied to, as they are flagged up as suspicious. To the person from India who was trying to dispose of 200 Westerman books, I'm afraid the carriage costs would make it a non starter. If I am wrong and these are genuine enquiries, I apologies. If you are determined to contact me, please send me a letter.
Many thanks
Westerman Yarns
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
A Christmas Gift Idea for a Bookish Person
Book collectors and literature history enthusiasts or anyone who has spent time browsing the shelves of secondhand and antiquarian bookshops may have often picked up a book and wondered about the story behind the book held in their hands, or the author of this once popular publication. So many names who were once a topic of playground talk from an age when reading was more popular than the latest computer games or celebrity Facebook, but whose names in this age of the internet are now all but forgotten However, help is now at hand, because earlier this year children’s literature academic Dennis Butts published a series of fascinating essays exploring some of these lost children’s authors and publishers. Dennis Butts is a former chairman of the Children’s Books History Society and taught children’s literature at Reading University. He has a life-long interest in the relationship between politics, society and literature and has written on many aspects of children’s books.
His new book, The Vagaries of Fame: Some Successes and Failures in Children’s Literature is available exclusively through Amazon, as a print on demand paperback publication and now as a downloadable Kindle book. In an age where writers such as J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series have achieved global fame, The Vagaries of Fame examines more closely the lives and works authors including Gillian Avery, William Mayne, Percy F. Westerman, Dr William Gordon Stables and F. W. Farrar. Farrar’s school-story Eric, or Little by Little first published in 1858, became enormously popular, selling thousands of copies, and reaching a 43rd edition by 1919, but today it is almost forgotten; lost to the dusty corners of a few secondhand bookshops, but still valued by some collectors.
In this book Dennis takes each of the authors, discusses their popularity at the time and suggests reasons why they may have fallen from grace. He also explores the rise and fall of the birth of the technological age at the BBC and their groundbreaking ‘Children’s Hour’ programmes and takes a look at some of the once popular publishing houses that have since been lost in the mists of time.
A recent review in The Children’s Books History Society Newsletter said ‘Dennis Butts wears his knowledge lightly and presents his subjects and his opinions with a refreshing energy...’ and Nigel Gossop from the Westerman Yarns Collection said ‘This is such a useful and immensely readable and informative book; a great reference source and a wonderful gift for anyone with an interest in collecting or learning more about children’s literature.’
Search for The Vagaries of Fame by Dennis Butts on Amazon.