Category Archives: Dawn of the Unread

#MondayBlogs Nottingham’s Literary Streets

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Photo taken from www.sillitoe.com

For a provincial city, Nottingham has an incredible literary history. When you arrive via train into the orange bricked Victorian station you are immediately greeted by a banner proclaiming our three most famous ‘rebel’ writers: Alan Sillitoe, Lord Byron and DH Lawrence.

Sillitoe’s debut novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) was the first novel to give an authentic voice to the working classes through the eyes of hard drinking, womanising Arthur Seaton. It would become Pan’s first paperback to sell a million copies.

Lord Byron, whose ancestral home of Newstead Abbey is set in a glorious landscape of gardens and parkland north of the city, fought for the underdog in the Greek War of Independence as well as at home. In his maiden speech to the House of Lords he stood up for the 1811 framebreakers who were demonstrating against diminishing wages and faced lengthy prison sentences. Byron famously argued: “Can you carry this bill into effect? Can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? Will you erect a gibbet in every field and hang up men like scarecrows?”

DH Lawrence, whose home at 8a Victoria Street, Eastwood is now a Birthplace Museum with regular talks and literary walks, would pave the way forward for greater freedom of expression after the acquittal of Penguin Books in the Lady Chatterley Trail of 1960.

hungry

Mary Howitt is brought back to life in Nottingham’s literary graphic novel Dawn of the Unread

But Nottingham is also home to Quaker poet Mary Howitt who translated the works of Hans Christian Anderson and was one of the first writers to offer dietary information to the working classes through a journal she co-wrote with her husband William. You can find a bust of the Howitt’s at Nottingham Castle or read her books at Bromley House Subscription Library, which celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2016.

Graham Greene converted to Catholicism during his short stay in the city and trained as a journalist at the Nottingham Express Offices on Upper Parliament Street. The building has a distinctive style having been designed by local architect Watson Fothergill. Incorporated into the entrance are the busts of three leading Liberal politicians of the day – Cobden, Gladstone & Bright.

J.M Barrie makes an appearance in issue 14 of Dawn of the Unread

J.M Barrie makes an appearance in issue 14 of Dawn of the Unread

Cut across the city and you’ll find the old offices of the Nottingham Daily Journal on Pelham Street. It was here that J M Barrie learned his trade as a journalist and allegedly found the inspiration for his Peter Pan story after spending time in the Arboretum on Waverley Street.

Geoffrey Trease features in Issue 11 of Dawn of the Unread

Geoffrey Trease features in Issue 11 of Dawn of the Unread

Directly opposite the Arboretum on Portland Street is the former home of Geoffrey Trease, who studied at the High School which you can find up the tramline leading out of the city. Trease produced an incredible 113 novels during his life before calling it a day at 88. He, too, was a rebel writer in that he was the first children’s author to give equal roles to both genders, offering historically accurate details to his stories that avoided the jingoism of the age.

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Photo City of Literature.

It’s because of this rich history of positive rebellion that various organisations in Nottingham have partnered together to create Nottingham City of Literature. At the beginning of July we submitted our bid to be accredited as a UNESCO City of Literature. We find out on 11 December if we’ve been successful. But until then, why don’t you visit Dawn of the Unread, a graphic novel serial exploring Nottingham’s literary history. It’s taken over my life for the past sixteen months and will be finished in September time when we publish a physical version of the book.

And if you want to learn more about Nottingham’s general gobiness over the centuries, check out my Rebel Hearts essay in Issue 70 of Leftlion.

RELATED READING

 

 

Flashmob: A reading celebration. 12 July – Old Market Square

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flash-crop1I hate Nottingham because there’s always so much going on it makes it impossible for me to leave and get that dream house overlooking the Yorkshire Dales that my heart claims I desire. This Saturday sees the Waterfront Festival bring a host of musicians to bars down by the canal as well as the beginning of the Sneinton Festival. There’s also a massive sandpit being erected in Market Square so that Dad’s can get pissed and pretend they’re in Skeggy while teenagers make phallic shaped sand sculptures in the rain.

At 12 noon I’ll be offering my contribution towards distractions from shopping in the form of a mass flashmob to celebrate reading. This is partly to promote Dawn of the Unread, an interactive graphic novel that brings back to life 12 writers from Nottingham’s past, and partly to show a bit of appreciation to the many authors, bookshops, libraries and publishers who have brought us joy over the years through the written word.

Reading is often a solitary process and usually takes place alone on a bus, in a bath, behind a desk at work when the boss is out the office having an important meeting. But for five minutes I want people to be alone together, reading in one designated place: Old Market Square.

Inspiration for this can probably go to Martina Conti’s choreography A Reading Sculpture, which celebrated the interaction between the human body and the book. She created this as part of WEYA in 2012 and is still the best artistic performance I’ve ever seen. A group of readers simply got out their books and then moved around a given space, reading in various positions. A Kama Sutra for book lovers if you like.

The flashmob is a joint collaboration between Dawn of the Unread, John Mateur and Robert Squirrell. Just turn up with a book, sit down on the first strike of 12 and then start reading. We’ve contacted all demographics from Mumsnet to asylum seekers to students and asked them to bring along a favourite or current book. My hope is to turn reading into a visual act, a kind of physical sculpture which hopefully will remind those who need to be reminded of the importance of stories in our lives.

Booked

Artwork: Dawn of the Unread.

We will also be yarnbombing the Cloughie statue to celebrate the launch of ‘Booked’ the fifth comic in the Dawn of the Unread series. This is written by poet Andy Croft and illustrated by artist Kate Ashwin and tells the tale of a monstrous but charmismatic hybrid called Byron Clough,

Please join us. Bring your Beano, Fifty Shades, or dirty Italian phrases handbook for that imminent summer holiday. We don’t care what it is as long as you’re reading.

And if you miss the event you can catch me on NottsTV on Monday, around 6.30ish, waffling on about the beauty of books.

 

dawnoftheunread website