http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk The home of The Fine Line Editorial Consultancy Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:59:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/the-red-red-rose/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/the-red-red-rose/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:09:37 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=620 Since kindly Aphrodite spilt blood upon a white rose to aid her wounded lover, Adonis, a red rose has symbolised love everlasting – or a passing passion if it’s simply a flower and not a symbol of the life blood you would give to save a beloved. Biblically, it is a symbol of shame, of [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/the-red-red-rose/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/romancing-traditions/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/romancing-traditions/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:01:48 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=623 The card is bought, the flowers arranged, the champagne on ice, the restaurant is booked, the jewellery glitters, the perfume is sweet, and the chocolates so pretty in their heart-shaped gold-wrapped box.  You’ve done it: every tradition fulfilled, every symbol of a romance that time will not fade, and every token of love everlasting is [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/romancing-traditions/feed/ 1 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/mythical-love/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/mythical-love/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:22:49 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=593 Mythical tales of love are many – countless, perhaps – and have a tendency towards the melodramatic at best and the tragic at worst.  In an attempt to remain in keeping with the celebration of love that is St Valentine’s Day, I searched the scores of mythological lovers for a happy tale.  The best I [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/mythical-love/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/uncanny-stories-by-may-sinclair/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/uncanny-stories-by-may-sinclair/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:14:21 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=467 May Sinclair is in danger of being lost under a mountain of critical essays; smothered by scholars of literature and psychoanalysis alike, apparently determined to claim her as one of their own; and dissected by biographers until every word on the page is weighted with biographical reference, no matter how tenuous.  Her fate is partly [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/uncanny-stories-by-may-sinclair/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/daphne-du-maurier/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/daphne-du-maurier/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:14:55 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=143 Rebecca has been many things to many people.  To the reading public, it is a gothic romance and ferocious tale of jealousy, betrayal, and suspense.  To academics it is ripe with Freudian subtext – the younger second wife (daughter) longing for the affections of her husband (father), but envious of and intimidated by the first [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/daphne-du-maurier/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/elizabeth-smart/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/elizabeth-smart/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:22:46 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=55 In August 1937 writer Elizabeth Smart walked into a London bookshop, opened a collection of poems by George Barker and fell in love.  By the time they met and began an affair three years later – resulting in the birth of four children, although he never left his wife – she was already so utterly [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/elizabeth-smart/feed/ 1 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/elizabeth-smart-encore/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/elizabeth-smart-encore/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:18:27 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=53 In 1940, Elizabeth Smart began an affair with the poet, George Barker, which she eternalized in its many agonies and seemingly far fewer ecstasies in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.  Though Barker stayed with his wife, they had four children who Smart supported through journalism and advertising work in London before [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/elizabeth-smart-encore/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/louise-shivers/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/louise-shivers/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:14:28 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=51 Every once in a while, a book comes along in which the pacing is so precise, the pitch so perfect, the language so measured, and the cast so beguiling that I am mesmerized and awed. Louise Shivers’ first novel, Here to get My Baby out of Jail appeared over twenty years ago and, when I [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/louise-shivers/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/zelda-fitzgerald/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/zelda-fitzgerald/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:03:01 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=46 There isn’t a whole heap left to say about Zelda Fitzgerald.  Common consensus states she was a drunk, a Southern Belle, a madwoman, one half of the 20’s most garrulous couple, the definitive Flapper, and a writer, painter, and dancer frustrated at every turn by some wider desire for conformity and the professional jealousy of [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/zelda-fitzgerald/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/a-n-roquelaure/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/a-n-roquelaure/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:00:30 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=44 Porn is posh.  It is not explicit or pornographic: instead it is “libertine philosophy” (review of The Sexual Life of Catherine M in the Times Literary Supplement, no less).  It does not need to be concealed from wives and servants (see Mervyn Griffith-Jones’ Opening Address for the Prosecution in Lady Chatterley’s Trial).  It “exemplifies the [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/a-n-roquelaure/feed/ 0 http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/dorothy-parker/ http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/dorothy-parker/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:58:41 +0000 The Criticess http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/?p=42 I have a very learned friend with a passion for 20’s literature and a PhD in Psychoanalysis and Modernism’s Departure From Femininity.  She got married a little while ago and, appropriately, had a fabulously 20’s themed wedding with flapper dresses and tables named after the era’s most famous writers.  I was put on the Algonquin [...]]]> http://editorial-consultancy.co.uk/the-criticess/dorothy-parker/feed/ 0