Philip Henderson (1906–1977)

I ready only 1/3 short novels contained within this book. The Castle of Otranto is a Gothic novel-supposedly the first ever written. It has all the requisite components: castle, a villain, a helpless female, and a "ghost". I really do like my gothic less fantastical (such as Wuthering Heights). I read this because it was on the 1001 Books list. It was written much like Shakespeare so it was not an easy read. The preface states that it is much like A Midsummer Night's Dream. All in all I'm show more glad to have read this "very first" gothic novel. 192 pages . show less

A coherent and well researched biography of the able artist, and fantasy writer. As an example of victorian artistic life it is engrossing in parts. Sadly, not enough illustration, but publishers have budgets for that kind of thing....pity.

Among the many biographies of Christopher Marlowe that were published in the years following Leslie Hotson's watershed The Death of Christopher Marlowe, Henderson's is almost completely unremarkable. He adds nothing new to the study of Marlowe's life, and in a few cases his research is sadly deficient. Most notably, Henderson failed to recognize that J. Le Gay Brereton's "The Case of Francis Ingram" was a satire, and took Brereton to task for his fanciful claims. There are plenty of better show more biographies than this one. show less

Contains: Jack of Newberie -- Thomas of Reading -- The unfortuate traveller -- Carde of fancie