The Literature Network - Books: Well red at Oxford Inside an old trunk destined for a car boot sale, a thrilling cache of letters has emerged to shed light on the student days of the revolutionary firebrand and poet, P B Shelley. Suzi Feay is transported by a brilliant philosophi

Books: Well red at Oxford Inside an old trunk destined for a car boot sale, a thrilling cache of letters has emerged to shed light on the student days of the revolutionary firebrand and poet, P B Shelley. Suzi Feay is transported by a brilliant philosophi

Content courtesy of

From: The Independent on Sunday
Date: 20050424
Author:Suzi Feay

The letters are strung together on ancient blue cord and there are traces of a blob of sealing wax. Nearly 200 years ago, the recipient filed them and forgot about them. But the paper is not so brown and decayed as you might expect, and the content is immortally fresh. Susannah Morris, the manuscripts expert at Christie's who has been investigating the letters' provenance and history, has discreetly withdrawn and left me alone to commune with them. Am I going to read them, or am I, like the William Blake-crazed serial killer of Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, going to take the precious ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Books: Well red at Oxford Inside an old trunk destined for a car boot sale, a thrilling cache of letters has emerged to shed light on the student days of the revolutionary firebrand and poet, P B Shelley. Suzi Feay is transported by a brilliant philosophi

Other Articles on William Blake