17-456: ( Helen ) Hope Mirrlees (8 April 1887 – 1 August 1978) was a British poet, novelist and translator. She is best known for the 1926 Lud-in-the-Mist , an influential fantasy novel, and for Paris: A Poem (1920) , an experimental poem published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf 's Hogarth Press, which critic Julia Briggs deemed "modernism's lost masterpiece, a work of extraordinary energy and intensity, scope and ambition." Helen Hope Mirrlees
34-434: A brief biography by writer Michael Swanwick , an artist-book facsimile reprint of Paris, a poem by printer and publisher Hurst Street Press, and translations of Lud-in-the-Mist into German and Spanish. Joanna Russ wrote a short story, The Zanzibar Cat (1971), in homage to Hope Mirrlees and as a critique of Lud-in-the-Mist – and indeed the entire genre of fantasy, describing Fairyland "half in affectionate parody, but
51-430: A city located at the confluence of the rivers Dapple and Dawl, in the fictional state of Dorimare, must contend with the influx of fairy fruit and the effect of the fantastic inhabitants of the bordering land of Faerie, whose presence and very existence they had sought to banish from their rational lives. When the denial proves futile, their mayor, the respectable Nathaniel Chanticleer, finds himself involved reluctantly with
68-401: A high poignancy that sticks in the mind". Lud-in-the-Mist had been named a source of inspiration to multiple fantasy and science fiction authors. Michael Swanwick called it "one of the least known and most influential of modern fantasies". Elizabeth Hand and Tim Powers have both named it as a source of inspiration. Neil Gaiman described Lud as "one of the finest [fantasy novels] in
85-505: Is the subject of increasing attention by scholars of modernism, inspired by Julia Briggs's considerable study, and is considered by some to have had an influence on the work of her friend, T. S. Eliot , and on that of Virginia Woolf . Mirrlees set her first novel, Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists (1919), in and around the literary circles of the 17th Century Précieuses , and particularly those salons frequented by Mlle de Scudéry . Mirrlees later used medieval Spanish culture as part of
102-556: The 1920s. Sandeep Parmar is currently writing a biography of Mirrlees as well. She also features in the group biography Square Haunting by Francesca Wade (2020). Lud-in-the-Mist Lud-in-the-Mist (1926) is the third and final novel by the British writer Hope Mirrlees . It continues the author's exploration of the themes of Life and Art, by a method already described in the preface of her first novel, Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists (1919): "to turn from time to time upon
119-510: The Cold Spring Press includes a foreword by Neil Gaiman and an introduction by Douglas A. Anderson . A new edition from Prologue Books was published in 2013. In a 1946 discussion of fantastic literature, Edward Wagenknecht referred to "Hope Mirrlees' unappreciated masterpiece Lud-in-the-Mist ". David Langford and Mike Ashley describe Lud-in-the-Mist as "a moving book, shifting unpredictably from drollery to menace to
136-510: The English language.... It is a little golden miracle of a book." He described Mirrlees's writing as "elegant, supple, effective and haunting: the author demands a great deal from her readers, which she repays many times over." He says that it is one of his top ten favourite books. Joy Wilkinson wrote an adaptation for BBC Radio 4, which broadcast on 30 October 2021. It starred Olivia Poulet , Richard Lumsden and Lloyd Hutchinson. Neil Gaiman
153-668: The United Kingdom and France, often returning to Paris to continue Harrison's medical treatments, their travels also took them to other European countries. Both of them studied Russian, Mirrlees earning a Diploma in Russian from the École des Langues Orientales of Paris, and went on to collaborate on translations from the Russian. Mirrlees and Harrison visited Spain in 1920, and there took Spanish lessons. After Harrison's death, Mirrlees converted to Catholicism. In 1948, Mirrlees moved to South Africa and remained there until 1963, when
170-547: The action the fantastic limelight of eternity, with a sudden effect of unreality and the hint of a world within a world". Lud-in-the-Mist begins with a quotation by Jane Harrison , with whom Mirrlees lived in London and Paris, and whose influence is also found in Madeleine and The Counterplot . The book is dedicated to the memory of Mirrlees's father. In the novel, the prosaic and law-abiding inhabitants of Lud-in-the-Mist,
187-497: The author was alive or dead, "since our efforts to trace this lady [Mirrlees] have so far been unsuccessful." Since 2000, Mirrlees' work has undergone another resurgence in popularity, marked by new editions of her poetry, an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography and several scholarly essays by critic Julia Briggs, new introductions to Lud-in-the-Mist by writer Neil Gaiman and scholar Douglas A. Anderson , essays and
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#1732790965759204-577: The background of her second novel, The Counterplot (1924). Lud-in-the-Mist was reprinted in 1970 in mass-market paperback format by Lin Carter , without the author's permission, for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series , and then again by Del Rey in 1977. The "unauthorised" nature of the 1970 reprint is explained by the fact that, as Carter indicated in his introduction, he and the publishing company could not even ascertain whether
221-512: The conflict and obliged to change his conventional personal life and disregard the traditions of Lud-in-the-Mist to find a reconciliation. Whereas in the novels Madeleine and The Counterplot , Mirrlees adapted elements from history, religion and literature, her use of a secondary-world setting in Lud-in-the-Mist associates it with the tradition of high fantasy , and thereby with its current popularity. In 1970, an American reprint
238-870: The first volume of her "extravagant biography" of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton was published (the second volume is unpublished). Two volumes of poetry, Poems and Moods and Tensions , were also privately published. Mirrlees was a friend of Virginia Woolf, who described her in a letter as "her own heroine – capricious, exacting, exquisite, very learned, and beautifully dressed." Her circle of celebrity friends also included T. S. Eliot ; Gertrude Stein , who mentions Mirrlees in Everybody's Autobiography ; Bertrand Russell ; and Ottoline Morrell . Mirrlees died in Thames Bank, Goring, England, in 1978, aged 91. Mirrlees' 600-line modernist poem, Paris: A Poem , published in 1920 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press ,
255-403: The other half very seriously indeed". Hope-in-the-Mist , a book-length study of Mirrlees and her work by Michael Swanwick, was published by Temporary Culture in 2009. The Collected Poems of Hope Mirrlees was published by Fyfield Books ( Carcanet Press ) in 2011 (edited by Sandeep Parmar). It includes previously unpublished poems, the full text of Paris , her later poems and prose essays from
272-651: Was born in Chislehurst, Kent, and raised in Scotland and South Africa. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before going up to Newnham College, Cambridge to study Greek. While at Cambridge, Mirrlees developed a close relationship with the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison , Mirrlees' tutor and later her friend and collaborator. Mirrlees and Harrison lived together from 1913 until the latter's death in 1928. Although they divided their time mainly between
289-555: Was published without the author's permission, as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series . According to that volume's introduction, Lin Carter , the series editor, could not locate the author. The book had fallen into the public domain in the United States as the copyright had not been renewed in 1954 or 1955, which was the statute at the time. It was reprinted subsequently by Orion Books in 2000 as part of their Fantasy Masterworks series. A more recent republication by
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